For six innings, Midland’s season finale had all the markings of a quiet exit. The RockHounds had one hit, no runs and a five-run deficit. Their seventh inning looked nothing like what came before it: 11 batters, six runs and a string of hard-hit balls that turned Momentum Bank Ballpark from a place winding down into one roaring back to life.
C.J. Pittaro tied the game with his first Double-A hit, Casey Yamauchi followed with the go-ahead single, and Midland held on for a 6-5 win over Corpus Christi on Sunday.
The comeback began as soon as Trey Dombroski’s night ended. Dombroski had limited the RockHounds to three baserunners across six scoreless innings, but Jared Sprague-Lott opened the seventh with a single against Andrew Marrero. Ali Camarillo followed with a sharp double to center, and Brennan Milone was hit by a pitch to load the bases with nobody out.
Marrero struck out Bobby Boser, putting the rally in danger of becoming another missed opening. Cameron Leary made sure it did not.
Leary ripped a ball toward right field and sent it rolling to the bullpen fence. Sprague-Lott and Camarillo scored, Milone moved to third, and a game that had been drifting toward a comfortable Hooks victory was suddenly 5-2.
Clark Elliott walked to reload the bases before CJ Rodriguez lined a run-scoring single to center. That brought Pittaro to the plate against Railin Perez, the second Corpus Christi pitcher of the inning, with Midland still two runs behind.
Pittaro sent a ground ball through the middle and into right field. Leary and Elliott came home, Pittaro had his first Double-A hit, and the five-run hole was gone.
Yamauchi completed the turnaround one batter later, grounding a single into center to score Rodriguez. The inning ended on two lineouts, but only after Midland had turned 10 plate appearances with the bases loaded or occupied into the game’s entire winning margin.
Leary finished 2-for-3 with a double, a walk and two RBIs. Yamauchi went 2-for-4, and Pittaro drove in two runs with the tying single. The teams each collected eight hits and committed no errors, but all six of Midland’s runs came in that one concentrated burst.
Corpus Christi had built its lead by breaking through against Kenya Huggins in the second. Huggins loaded the bases with nobody out, then struck out Chase Call and Justin Thomas Jr. to come within an out of escaping. Jack Moss lashed a line drive toward the left-field corner that bounced out for a ground-rule double, scoring Alejandro Nuñez and Max Holy. Will Bush followed with a two-run single.
Huggins was charged with four earned runs in 1 2/3 innings despite striking out four. Tyler Whitaker added a run-scoring double off Domingo Robles in the fifth, giving the Hooks their 5-0 advantage.
Midland’s bullpen kept that margin from growing. Robles worked three innings, Shohei Tomioka followed with two scoreless frames and three strikeouts, and the relief corps allowed one run over 7 1/3 innings. Tomioka earned the win.
The last three outs required one more escape. Blaze Pontes began the ninth but issued walks to Hector Salas and Justin Thomas Jr., putting two aboard with two outs. Micah Dallas entered and walked Moss to load the bases for Bush.
Bush grounded to first. Milone fielded it and underhanded the ball to Dallas covering the bag, ending the game with the tying run 90 feet away. Dallas earned his second save, preserving a one-run lead that had not existed until Midland packed an afternoon’s worth of offense into the seventh inning—and sent its season out with one final surge.