Angel Ortiz spent Wednesday night dragging Amarillo back into the game, first with a line-drive home run and later with the hit that finally pulled the Sod Poodles in front.
His two-run single in the eighth unlocked a five-run rally, and Ben McLaughlin sent a two-run homer into the parking lot moments later as Amarillo beat the San Antonio Missions 6-2 at Hodgetown.
Ortiz finished 2-for-4 with three RBIs, all of them arriving after San Antonio had taken a lead. His first answer came in the sixth, when the Missions scratched out the game’s opening run against Josh Grosz. Tirso Ornelas and Romeo Sanabria opened the inning with singles before Luis Verdugo grounded into a double play, allowing Ornelas to score while Amarillo traded two outs for the run.
The deficit lasted only long enough for two Sod Poodles to make outs in the bottom half. Ortiz followed by drilling his 12th homer of the season on a line to right-center, a shot bound for the center of the berm almost as soon as it left the bat.
That tied the game at 1, but Oswaldo Linares restored San Antonio’s advantage with his first Double-A homer in the seventh. His fly ball carried beyond the wall in left-center, putting the Missions ahead 2-1 and leaving Amarillo with six outs to find another response.
The Sod Poodles needed only five batters in the eighth.
Johan Moreno walked Trent Youngblood, hit Carlos Virahonda and walked Avery Owusu-Asiedu, loading the bases without recording an out. Ortiz ripped a ground ball beyond first baseman Sanabria and down the right-field line. Youngblood and Virahonda scored, Owusu-Asiedu reached third and Amarillo had its first lead of the night.
McLaughlin followed with the swing that broke the game open. After pulling a long ball foul, he stayed alive and drove a 1-2 pitch even farther to right-center — this one fair and headed for the parking lot. The two-run shot was his 14th homer of the season and his second in as many nights, supplying Amarillo’s final two runs in an inning that turned a one-run deficit into a four-run lead.
Moreno was charged with all five runs and did not record an out. Will Varmette took over and retired the next three hitters, but the damage had been done: Amarillo had produced nearly its entire night’s offense in one concentrated burst.
That late eruption rewarded Junior Sanchez for keeping the game scoreless through five innings. The right-hander allowed four hits, walked two and struck out four. San Antonio put two runners aboard in the first, but Sanchez escaped with a force out. He erased another threat with a double play in the second and kept the Missions off the board for the remainder of his outing.
Amarillo had chances against Abraham Parra without cashing them in. The Sod Poodles stranded a runner in the first, lost Druw Jones on a caught stealing in the second and hit into double plays in the third and fourth. Jean Walters’ second hit of the night moved Junior Franco to third in the fifth, but Parra again escaped, completing five scoreless innings.
Grosz allowed both San Antonio runs over the next two innings. Antonio Menendez navigated a bases-loaded threat in the eighth, getting Kerrington Cross to fly out, and improved to 4-0 when Amarillo seized the lead in the bottom half. Sawyer Hawks worked around two ninth-inning walks and struck out one to finish it.
The Sod Poodles managed six hits and played error-free baseball. For most of the night, that modest total left them chasing the Missions. Ortiz made sure it was enough.