The RoughRiders had the kind of ninth inning that can make a two-run loss feel crowded with possibility. Max Wagner opened it by driving a ball down the right-field line and hustling into second with his 13th double, putting the tying run at the plate before an out had been recorded.
Frisco never got him home. One inning after Sebastian Walcott had been thrown out at the plate trying to score from third, Wagner met the same end on Marcus Lee Sang’s grounder to short. Two late chances reached the plate. Neither crossed it, and Amarillo held on for a 4-2 win Friday night at Riders Field.
That was the hard edge of a night that began with one sudden Frisco swing. Walcott walked in the first inning against Brian Curley, and Arturo Disla followed by lifting his 16th home run high and deep to left. It left quickly enough that the opening inning briefly belonged to the RoughRiders, a two-run shot that made the building sound like the game had already tilted their way.
It did not hold. Frisco finished with two runs on nine hits, but Disla’s homer was the only scoring play the lineup produced. The RoughRiders put together traffic in the second, fifth, sixth, eighth and ninth without adding on, and the final two missed chances became the story.
Pregame, RoughRiders hitting coach Jason Hart had talked about a lineup that has spent the season making games feel unfinished until the last out. That identity still showed up in the baserunners. The payoff did not.
“I really never thought we were really ever out of a game because the guys, they fight together, they pass the baton.”
— Jason Hart, RoughRiders Hitting Coach
Amarillo worked its way back in pieces. Austin Roberts gave Frisco three scoreless innings, allowing no earned runs with four strikeouts and one walk, before Leandro Lopez entered in the fourth. Druw Jones opened Amarillo’s first scoring push with a one-out single, and Ben McLaughlin pulled the Sod Poodles within a run on a ground-ball single to left.
Lopez steadied the game with a quiet fifth, but the decisive turn came in the sixth against J’Briell Easley. Easley struck out Avery Owusu-Asiedu and got Angel Ortiz to fly out before Jones singled with two outs. McLaughlin then drove a sharp line drive into the gap in right-center, bringing Jones around to tie the game. Danny Serretti followed with a single back through the middle, scoring McLaughlin and putting Amarillo ahead for good.
Easley took the loss and the blown save after allowing two earned runs in one inning. McLaughlin finished 2-for-4 with a double, two RBIs and a run scored, while Jones went 3-for-4 with two runs and two stolen bases.
That sequence made the missed add-on opportunities sting. Marcus Lee Sang and Keith Jones II each had two hits for Frisco, and Lee Sang added a stolen base, but the RoughRiders could not turn the middle and bottom of the order’s contact into a second run-scoring inning. Keith Jones II singled in the second and fifth. Yeison Morrobel singled in the sixth. Each time, Curley limited the damage or ended the inning.
Curley earned the win after six innings of two-run ball, striking out four and walking one.
Hart’s pregame description of the offense was built around approach, not just power. Friday offered pieces of that, especially in the late innings, but not enough finish.
“I mean, the fact that the guys were competing and working ABs and managing their ABs in spring training, I was like, holy cow, these guys really know the zone, they’ll take their walks, they’ll take their lousy singles the other way, it’s going to be fun.”
— Jason Hart, RoughRiders Hitting Coach
The eighth gave Frisco its cleanest chance to rewrite the night. Walcott singled to left and Rafe Perich followed with a fly-ball single to left, putting two aboard with nobody out. Alfred Morillo answered by striking out Disla, and Morrobel’s fly ball to left turned into two outs when Walcott was cut down at home.
Amarillo added the cushion it needed in the ninth against Brock Porter. Alberto Barriga walked, moved up on a sacrifice bunt and scored when Cristofer Torin lined a single to left, stretching the lead to 4-2.
Frisco still had a chance with the game there. Wagner’s leadoff double in the bottom of the ninth brought Riders Field back into it for a moment, the ball shooting toward the right-field corner and one-hopping the fence. Sawyer Hawks, though, got the inning’s first out at the plate on Lee Sang’s grounder, then finished a scoreless ninth for his first save.
The RoughRiders had the first big swing and the last two threats. Amarillo had the two-out answer in the sixth and the cleaner finish at the plate.