There was a young, 19-year old diaper dandy, standing 6-foot-8, handcuffing an opponent.

Sure did look like Baisley. Sure did pitch like Baisley. But it wasn’t last year’s star hurler.

It was Ryan Madson, who arrived from extended spring training a day earlier and got a quick trip to the mound for the Piedmont Boll Weevils against the Charleston RiverDogs.

Nate Espy welcomed him with a two-homer performance and Madson took it from there, picking up the win in a 3-1 victory.

Pretty good for a kid coming off a sore shoulder that had kept him in Florida for the first month of the season.

“I’ve actually been throwing the ball real well,” Madson said afterward. “I just brought it up here, I guess.”

“I’m just glad we could win four from these guys,” said first baseman Nate Espy.

Espy gave Madson the only run he needed in the second with a long home run over the left-field wall. Madson did the rest.

After four innings, he had thrown just 40 pitches. By the time he left, with two outs in the eighth, he had a 3-0 lead. He struck out RiverDog star Josh Hamilton twice and gave up just five hits.

“We had him on a 90-pitch count and he had about 87, 88 by then,” said manager Greg Legg. “He was impressive. His changeup was outstanding.”

Speaking of outstanding, Espy is hitting at an unbollweevible pace.

In the sixth, with the score still 1-0, Marlon Byrd beat out an infield hit and Espy laid into a pitch on the outside corner. It sailed over the right-field wall for his seventh dinger of the season.

“We had a light breeze going out to left,” said Legg, “but when Nate hits, they’re going to go whether there’s a wind blowing out or not. It can be blowing in and it will still go out. Nate had a very good day.”