LYNX: ABOVE-AVERAGE JOES IN LOSS

Hard-throwing reliever Joe Bisenius had a positive outing in a 3-1 Lynx loss (box, play-by-play) to Charlotte tonight. Bisenius had been shaky in some of his first outings, but he came on to face the meat of the Knights' order and pitched a 1-2-3 ninth, getting first-pitch strikes on all three batters and striking out two.

It was a beauty night for baseball -- didn't even need a jacket until around the eighth inning -- but there wasn't much else to report on Ottawa's behalf, other than Joe Thurston getting on base three out of four times (walk/steal, bunt single, hard double into the right field-corner). Of course, when the No. 2 hitter only gets to bat four times, that's often a poor sign.

Zach Segovia (five hits, no walks, three earned over seven innings) was fairly sharp and broke a couple Charlotte bats, but one of those sawoffs actually helped the Knights. In the fourth, Segovia had two on and none out when he shattered Charlotte cleanup hitter Ernie Young's bat with a 3-2 fastball in on the hands. It would have been better if he had rapped a double-play ball right at an infielder; Charlotte had both runners breaking on the pitch, so the Lynx did well just to get one out, at second base. Sure enough, the next hitter, Ryan Sweeney, tapped another grounder that was too slow to turn a double play on, allowing the go-ahead run to score. Charlotte's Gavin Floyd, got in a groove around that point -- he struck four out of six hitters out in one stretch -- and that was it for Lynx's four-game win streak.

All in all, it was a nice night to hop on the 111 bus and take in a ballgame. Every fan who goes to a game this summer dds to the case for some form of pro ball -- indie league, short-season Class A -- carrying on in the capital. Regular reader Dennis Prouse has suggested that a New York-Penn League team might be good here, now The Tao of Stieb (see comment below) has suggested Rogers could put a Blue Jays farm club here, although such a team would inevitable called the O-Jays.

One roster change to report -- the Phillies have sent the Lynx righty reliever Clay Condrey, who was 6-4 with a 2.36 earned-run average across 80 innings between the IL and the majors last summer. Eude Brito has been put on the disabled list.

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.