Johan Moreno inherited a one-run lead in the eighth inning Wednesday night at Hodgetown. Five batters later, he had not recorded an out, Amarillo had scored five times and the San Antonio Missions were headed toward a 6-2 loss.
The inning turned swiftly and without the help of an Amarillo hit at first. Moreno walked Trent Youngblood, hit Carlos Virahonda and walked Avery Owusu-Asiedu to load the bases. Angel Ortiz followed with a ground ball beyond first baseman Romeo Sanabria and into right field, scoring Youngblood and Virahonda to flip San Antonio’s 2-1 lead into a 3-2 deficit.
Ben McLaughlin provided the crushing swing. He drove a two-run homer well beyond the right-center-field berm, the ball clearing the fence and bouncing toward the parking lot as the Sod Poodles’ lead grew to four runs.
Moreno was charged with all five runs, along with the loss and a blown save. Will Varmette replaced him and kept the inning from spreading further, striking out Druw Jones before retiring Danny Serretti and Junior Franco on line drives.
The collapse erased a strong start from Abraham Parra and what had been a memorable night for Oswaldo Linares.
Parra worked five scoreless innings, striking out five and walking three. Amarillo managed three hits against him but could not push a run across, even after putting runners at first and second with nobody out in the fourth. Parra struck out Ortiz before McLaughlin grounded into a double play. He navigated another threat in the fifth, leaving runners at the corners when Youngblood grounded out.
San Antonio finally broke the scoreless tie in the sixth, though the inning carried a sense of opportunity lost. Tirso Ornelas and Sanabria opened with singles, placing runners at the corners with nobody out. Luis Verdugo sent a grounder to third, and Amarillo turned it around the horn for two outs while Ornelas scored. The Missions settled for one run.
That slim advantage lasted only until Ortiz came to the plate in the bottom half against Igor Gil. Ortiz drove a line drive to right-center, sending it 395 feet onto the berm to tie the game at 1.
Linares answered in the seventh with his first Double-A home run. His fly ball to left-center carried beyond the Cross light area and left no doubt from the moment it took flight, restoring San Antonio’s lead at 2-1. Linares finished 1-for-3 with a walk and the RBI.
The Missions had a chance to stretch the margin in the eighth. Ornelas walked, Verdugo added another walk with two outs and Justin DeCriscio was hit by a pitch, loading the bases. Kerrington Cross lifted a soft fly to second, ending the threat and sending the one-run lead to Moreno.
Ortiz made San Antonio pay in the bottom half, completing a 2-for-4 night with a homer and three RBIs. McLaughlin’s homer finished the scoring before the Sod Poodles’ bullpen closed the door.
San Antonio collected seven hits but scored only twice, with one run coming on a double-play grounder and the other on Linares’ homer. Alex McCoy reached three times on a single and two walks and stole a base, but the Missions could not turn that traffic into another run. They went quietly enough after Amarillo’s outburst, putting two runners aboard in the ninth before Ornelas flied out to end it.
The Missions had spent most of the night protecting a narrow path to victory. Moreno’s five-batter eighth erased it.