Cameron Leary had already lost his batting helmet by the time the first inning truly got away from San Antonio.
The RockHounds had built a two-out threat, but Leary turned it into control of the night, driving Eric Yost’s pitch deep enough to send Kai Roberts retreating in center field until the ball carried beyond him. Casey Yamauchi, Nate Nankil and Ali Camarillo all scored, Leary slid into third with a three-run triple, and Midland spent the rest of Saturday night adding weight to an early lead in a 10-2 win over the Missions at Nelson Wolff Stadium.
Leary finished 3-for-3 with a triple, two walks and four RBIs. He reached base five times, stole two bases and scored multiple times, the kind of night that kept the RockHounds’ lineup from ever letting San Antonio breathe.
The first inning began with Clark Elliott slicing a leadoff single into left field. Two outs later, Yost walked Nankil and Camarillo to load the bases for Leary. Midland did not have to wait for the bottom half of the order to keep the inning alive. Leary cleared it himself.
That swing gave Ben Hansen room to pitch with traffic, which became nearly as important as the early offense. Hansen, now 3-0, allowed one earned run over five innings with four strikeouts and two walks. San Antonio put runners in scoring position in the second and third and had two aboard with nobody out in the fifth. The Missions got only one run out of all of it.
Hansen’s first real escape came in the second after Jack Costello reached on an error and Albert Fabian doubled. With two men in scoring position, Hansen got Justin DeCriscio on a soft grounder back to the mound and struck out Ryan Jackson to preserve the 3-0 lead.
San Antonio finally pushed through in the third, when Alex McCoy singled, Tirso Ornelas was hit by a pitch and Romeo Sanabria lined a double to center to score McCoy. But Hansen stopped it there, getting Costello on a soft grounder to first to leave two Missions runners in scoring position.
Midland answered before the game could tighten. Euribiel Angeles singled in the third, moved to third on Camarillo’s flyout and scored on a balk before Leary lined a single to center. That made it 4-1, and it also previewed the shape of the night: San Antonio could create a little pressure, but Midland kept producing the response.
The separation came in the fifth against Bernard Jose. Angeles singled, Nankil was hit by a pitch and Camarillo singled to load the bases. Leary ripped a sharp single into right, scoring Angeles and moving everyone else station to station. Logan Sauve later walked with the bases loaded, and Elliott’s grounder to second kicked off Ryan Jackson’s glove, allowing Leary and Jared Sprague-Lott to score. What had started as a rally San Antonio might have limited turned into four runs and an 8-1 Midland lead.
From there, the RockHounds were playing with the game tilted heavily in their favor. Nankil opened the scoring in the sixth with a high drive to left-center, his third homer of the season, sending the ball out beyond the wall for Midland’s only home run of the night. Leary walked later in the inning and scored from first when Sprague-Lott lashed a ball into right that got past McCoy, with Sprague-Lott diving headfirst into third for an RBI triple and a 10-1 lead.
Elliott added a double in the seventh and finished 3-for-6. Camarillo went 2-for-4 with a double, a walk and two runs. The RockHounds finished with 10 runs, 13 hits and two errors, and their defense helped keep the margin wide by turning four double plays behind the pitching staff.
San Antonio’s final run came in the sixth against Jay Dill, when Costello singled and Fabian doubled him home, advancing to third on an error. Fabian had two of the Missions’ three doubles and drove in their final run, but San Antonio finished with two runs, seven hits and one error.
Dill covered the sixth and seventh before Micah Dallas closed it with two scoreless innings, striking out two without a walk. Dallas worked around a Costello single in the eighth with a double play, then struck out DeCriscio and Anthony Vilar in the ninth around a Ryan Jackson popup.
Yost took the loss after allowing four earned runs over four innings, but the game was shaped by the swing he could not get past in the first. Leary turned a two-out chance into a three-run lead, then kept finding ways back onto the bases until Midland had turned a road game into a runaway.