Big Middle Innings From Wahoos Sink Rocket City 8-4
The Rocket City Trash Pandas used a pair of home runs to build a four-run lead on Friday night. The Pensacola Blue Wahoos responded with three home runs to turn the game around, defeating the Trash Pandas 8-4 in front of an energetic crowd of 6,137 at Toyota Field. Making
The Rocket City Trash Pandas used a pair of home runs to build a four-run lead on Friday night. The Pensacola Blue Wahoos responded with three home runs to turn the game around, defeating the Trash Pandas 8-4 in front of an energetic crowd of 6,137 at Toyota Field.
Making his second Double-A start, Rocket City righty Bryce Osmond needed just five pitches to get through a scoreless top of the first. In the bottom half, the Trash Pandas made Blue Wahoos southpaw Jonathan Bermudez work hard early, as a walk and a single put two on with one out. Tyler Payne capitalized by lining a three-run opposite field homer to right, his fourth of the season and second in as many games to put Rocket City up 3-0.
Leading off the bottom of the third, Adrian Placencia crushed a towering 423-foot solo blast off the batter’s eye in center field for his first Double-A home run, extending the Trash Pandas’ edge to 4-0.
Pensacola stormed back against Osmond over the next two innings. With two outs in the fourth, Cobie Fletcher-Vance hit a three-run homer to cut the deficit to one. In the fifth, Paul McIntosh put the Blue Wahoos ahead for the first time with a two-run homer to left. Will Banfield followed with a solo shot to left, his 21st of the season, to give the Blue Wahoos back-to-back homers and a 6-4 lead.
Osmond (L, 0-1) departed with one out in the fifth after allowing six earned runs on seven hits with five walks and five strikeouts to suffer his first Double-A loss. Bermudez (W, 4-5) lasted five innings for Pensacola, striking out 10 while allowing four runs on four hits to earn the win.
Luke Murphy kept the deficit at two with 1.2 scoreless innings. Zach Willeman held the lead with two clean innings of his own for Pensacola. John Swanda was next into the game in the seventh and quickly got through two innings unscathed.
But in the ninth, the Blue Wahoos took advantage of two Rocket City errors to add a pair of runs off Swanda, doubling their lead to 8-4. Luarbert Arias (S, 3) earned the save for the Blue Wahoos with two scoreless innings.
Payne led the way for the Rocket City offense, going 2-for-4 with the three-run homer. From the top of the lineup, Calabrese went 2-for-4 with a run scored and a stolen base.
The Trash Pandas (57-73, 26-35 second half) continue the series against the Blue Wahoos (74-54, 33-27 second half) on Saturday night. First pitch is scheduled for 6:35 p.m. Josh Caray will be on the call for 103.9 FM THE UMP and 730 AM SportsRadio. The game will also be televised locally on WAAY 31.6, This TV. After the game, fireworks will light up the sky above Toyota Field, courtesy of Inline Electric.