For the final regular-season home game at Riders Field, Frisco left its fans with the version of the RoughRiders that has made September feel like more than an ending. They got hit early, answered fast, found just enough offense from the lower half of the order, and then handed a one-run lead to a bullpen that did not give Amarillo another inch.
The RoughRiders beat the Sod Poodles 3-2 on Sunday, closing the home slate with five scoreless innings from the bullpen after Thomas Ireland steadied the game from a rough first inning. Josh Trentadue, Jonathan Brand, Joey Danielson and Bryan Magdaleno handled the rest, with Magdaleno working the final two innings for his third save.
The day began with the kind of punch that can turn a finale quiet. Trent Youngblood opened the game with a soft ground-ball single off Ireland, and Avery Owusu-Asiedu followed two batters later with his 12th homer, a fly ball that carried out to left while Marcus Lee Sang could only track it toward the wall. Amarillo had a 2-0 lead three batters into the afternoon.
That was all the Sod Poodles scored.
Ireland still had to work. He walked Matt O’Neill in the second, gave up another Owusu-Asiedu hit in the third and put two aboard in the fourth, but he left the game having allowed two earned runs over four innings, with three strikeouts and two walks. In a one-run game, that recovery mattered as much as anything Frisco did with the bats.
Sebastian Walcott made sure the early deficit did not sit long. Leading off the bottom of the first against David Hagaman, Walcott drove his eighth homer to left-center, a high, no-doubt shot that cut Amarillo’s lead in half and jolted the afternoon back toward Frisco. He finished 2-for-4 with an RBI and a run scored.
The comeback itself arrived in the fourth, and it came from the part of the lineup that had to grind to make Hagaman pay. Rafe Perich opened the inning with a line-drive single to right that dipped in front of Owusu-Asiedu. Yeison Morrobel moved him to second with a groundout, Max Wagner struck out, and Ian Moller drew a walk to keep the inning alive.
Then Lee Sang and Luke Hanson turned two-out traffic into the final score.
Lee Sang, who went 2-for-3, sent a ground ball back through the middle to score Perich and tie the game. Hanson followed with a sharp grounder that deflected off shortstop Cristofer Torin and into center field, bringing home Moller for a 3-2 RoughRiders lead. The hit was Hanson’s only one of the day, but it was the go-ahead RBI and the last run either team would score.
For a club playing its final regular-season home game, the shape fit what Scott Burchett had talked about before first pitch. The RoughRiders’ president and general manager framed the year as something long, demanding and still alive.
“It’s been a long, but really fun year. So I always say baseball’s a marathon and a sprint all at the same time, and this year is no different.”
— Scott Burchett, Roughriders President And General Manager
The bullpen made the lead stand with very little drama. Trentadue inherited Youngblood after Ireland walked him to begin the fifth and retired the next three hitters, striking out Owusu-Asiedu on the way to the win, improving to 4-2. Brand worked around a walk in the sixth. Danielson allowed a Jean Walters single and hit Owusu-Asiedu in the seventh, but got Angel Ortiz to fly out to right to strand both runners.
Magdaleno took it from there. He struck out Druw Jones to begin the eighth, retired the next two hitters, then came back for the ninth and finished it with a strikeout of Youngblood. His two scoreless innings completed a bullpen line that covered five innings without allowing a run.
Frisco had chances to add on, including Wagner’s infield single deep in the hole in the sixth and Walcott’s seventh-inning single, but the game stayed tight because Hagaman and Amarillo’s bullpen kept it there. Hagaman took the loss after allowing three earned runs over 5.1 innings, striking out five and walking one.
That left the afternoon to be decided by the inning Frisco seized and the innings Amarillo could not. The Sod Poodles finished with six hits, two of them from Owusu-Asiedu, but did not score after the first. Frisco finished with eight hits and no errors.
Burchett had also spoken before the game about the way fans kept showing up through a long home season, and Sunday gave them one more tight finish before the postseason home dates ahead.
“Our fans are incredible. You know, they keep coming back and showing up every single day.”
— Scott Burchett, Roughriders President And General Manager
The RoughRiders did not overwhelm Amarillo on Sunday. They did not need to. Walcott answered the first swing that hurt them, the bottom of the order built the inning that flipped the game, and the bullpen made 3-2 feel bigger than it was.