Welcome into another edition of the Delco Baseball Now newsletter, where we take you around Delco to talk all things summer baseball.

In our four years of running Delco Baseball Now, we have a clear biggest rival and it is not even close:

The internet connection at Cardinal O’Hara High School.

I can’t even call it a rivalry because we have never one. It’s a very one-sided rivalry similar to the Eagles vs the Giants over the last decade.

We tried to stream last night’s Delco League Finals game but we just got bullied by the internet, even with the WiFi password. Our off-season will be spent with sleepless nights trying to figure that out.

Until then, we apologize for the inconvenience and look to be be back on the air Wednesday night at Devon Prep. Seeing some more subscribers pop up will help with the pain.

Delco League:

The starting pitching in this series has somehow surpassed the hype that it had going into the series.

Upper Darby has not allowed a run in 14 innings so far this series. After Kevin McGovern threw a complete game shutout in Game 1, Nick DiEva did the same in Game 2.

It took DiEva about 60 more pitches as he gutted through 134 pitches on the night. Upper Darby scored one run early after an errant throw on a steal allowed a run to come in, and Sammy Burman drove in his second run of the series to make it 2-0.

There’s only been three runs scored in the entire series through two games, so he could be an early MVP favorite.

Even in the loss, you have to tip your cap to Wayne starter Cam Mathes, the 2022 and 2023 Finals MVP. Mathes had not thrown a pitch since July 9th and was very sharp in this one. The Wayne offense just has not been able to get anything going.

I would guess the pitching matchup Wednesday will be Luke Zimmerman for Wayne and Quinten Perilli for Upper Darby, but that is all up in the air.

I just hope that Delco Baseball Now Vice President Ben Thorpe gets to make an appearance at some point in this series.

Mid-County:

As the higher seed in this tournament, Clifton is the home team for Game 3.

The problem is that their home field, Dermond Park in Drexel Hill, had their fences taken down because it is also used for football. Game 3 was moved to Aston Valley’s home field of Sun Valley High School.

It appeared that no one told the umpires that.

The game did not get underway until nearly a half hour later, a suicide mission for everyone involved to try and get a full game in. There were four innings played, leading to a sprint to the finish line for tonight’s finale.

This might be the longest three-game series of all time as it officially started eight days ago.

MiLB:

While a lot of the hype in this area is around Bonner alum Kevin McGonigle in the Tigers’ system, Ethan Pecko looks like he’s going to be a big leaguer as well.

Pecko has ascended up the Houston Astros system and will be heading to Triple-A at just 22 years old. Pecko isn’t as much of a household name because he lost his senior year in 2020 due to the pandemic so he isn’t quite as well known.

Side note: The Sugar Land Space Cowboys may be the best logo in sports right now. I almost don’t want him to get called up for a bit just so he gets to play here for longer.

Phillies:

Move over Shohei Ohtani, this MVP is Kyle Schwarber’s to lose.

Schwarber blasted his 39th and 40th homers of the year already on Monday night. He already has 94 RBI, just ten short of his career high and it is only August 5th. This is looking like a 2008 Ryan Howard end of the season right now.

While only Howard has hit one into the third deck, Schwarber hit one off the front of it last night and certainly could get one up there. He is the leader of this team and deserves every penny of the contract that he is about to get.

It better be John Middleton signing it.