San Antonio still had a mathematical path when the night began, a big Saturday crowd in the seats at Nelson Wolff Stadium and one more chance to keep the season from narrowing to its final game.
Midland took most of that drama away in the first inning and finished off the rest in the fifth, handing the Missions a 10-2 loss that officially eliminated them from playoff contention.
Cameron Leary delivered the first cut. With two outs in the opening inning, Eric Yost had a chance to work around a single and two walks. Instead, Leary drove a ball to center that sent Kai Roberts back toward the warning track and kept carrying over his head. Casey Yamauchi, Nate Nankil and Ali Camarillo all scored, and Leary slid in with a bases-clearing triple before San Antonio had taken a swing.
That made the Missions chase the game from the start. Against Ben Hansen, they did enough in the early innings to put traffic on base, but not enough to make the first rally hold. Jack Costello reached on an error and Albert Fabian doubled in the second, only for San Antonio to come away empty. In the third, Alex McCoy singled and Tirso Ornelas was hit by a pitch before Romeo Sanabria lined a ball into right-center. McCoy scored easily, and Ornelas was held at third as the Missions trimmed the deficit to 4-1.
For a moment, that was the version of the game San Antonio needed: a crooked first survived, a run back on the board, and enough innings left to make Midland sweat. The RockHounds never really let it get there.
Leary kept finding the center of the game. He singled in the third, then drove in the decisive fifth-inning scoring against Bernard Jose with a line-drive single to right. By the end of the night, he had gone 3-for-3 with a triple, two walks and four RBIs, reaching base every time and repeatedly forcing the Missions to pitch with pressure already on them.
The fifth was where the game stopped being a comeback problem and became a rout. Midland loaded the bases with nobody out, scored on Leary’s single, had a runner cut down at the plate on Jared Sprague-Lott’s fielder’s choice, then added another run when Logan Sauve walked with the bases loaded. Jose was nearly through the inning with the damage contained at two runs, but Clark Elliott bounced a ball to second that Ryan Jackson could not handle. The ball kicked into right field, Leary and Sprague-Lott scored, and the RockHounds had stretched the lead to 8-1.
Yost took the loss after allowing four earned runs over four innings with six strikeouts and two walks. Jose was charged with four earned runs over two innings in relief. Igor Gil and Wyatt Hoffman combined for three scoreless innings after that, but by then the night had already tilted hard toward Midland.
The lead grew again in the sixth. Nankil drove a fly ball to left-center that carried out for his third home run of the season, a 395-foot shot that made it 9-1. Leary later walked and scored on Sprague-Lott’s triple to right, pushing Midland to double digits.
San Antonio’s other run came in the bottom half, and it belonged to one of the few offensive bright spots the Missions had. Costello singled, and Fabian pulled a fair ball past third and into the left-field corner. Costello came all the way around, and Fabian reached third when the throw back in skipped away. Fabian finished 2-for-4 with two doubles and an RBI. Sanabria went 1-for-4 with his RBI double, and McCoy was 2-for-4 with a run.
The broader numbers told the same story as the game itself. Midland finished with 10 runs, 13 hits and two errors. San Antonio had two runs, seven hits and one error. Hansen earned the win for the RockHounds, allowing one earned run over five innings with four strikeouts and two walks, and Micah Dallas closed the final two innings without allowing a run.
There was still the feel of a late-season home Saturday around the ballpark, with the crowd well over 5,000 and the Missions wearing Star Wars jerseys tied to an Alzheimer’s Association fundraiser. Miguel Martinez, a board member for the Alzheimer’s Association of San Antonio and South Texas, joined the broadcast during the middle innings and explained the local connection.
“So the Alzheimer’s Association of San Antonio and South Texas, we supply resources, and they also collect funds for research here in San Antonio.”
— Miguel Martinez, Alzheimer’s Association Board Member
By the time the final outs arrived, though, the standings had become as clear as the scoreboard. The Missions’ playoff chase ended not with one swing, but with an early three-run hole, a fifth inning that got away, and too little offense to climb back.