Cristofer Torin kept finding the gaps Friday night at Riders Field, and his third double carried Amarillo from the edge of a collapse to a championship.
Torin went 3-for-4 with three doubles, a walk and an RBI, scoring twice in the Sod Poodles’ 8-7 victory over Frisco in the deciding game of the Texas League South Divisional Series. His ninth-inning double broke a seven-inning scoring drought, and the two-run cushion Amarillo built around it proved just enough to survive the RoughRiders’ final swing.
The Sod Poodles appeared to seize control before Frisco recorded an out. Torin opened the game with a double, and Ben McLaughlin drove a hard grounder into right field to bring him home. Singles by Avery Owusu-Asiedu and Druw Jones, a Sebastian Walcott error, a Carlos Virahonda hit-by-pitch and an Alberto Barriga bases-loaded walk kept the inning moving.
Jean Walters finished the six-run outburst by shooting a ground ball through the middle, scoring Jones and Virahonda. Frisco starter Blake Townsend was charged with five earned runs without recording an out.
Joe Ariola gave Amarillo two scoreless innings with four strikeouts, but the six-run advantage did not stay comfortable for long. Rafe Perich turned on the eighth pitch of his third-inning plate appearance against Josh Grosz and sent it deep into the right-center-field seats for a grand slam. What had looked like an early celebration was suddenly a 6-4 game.
Brian Curley, who had worked four innings out of the bullpen in Game 2, had described Amarillo’s posture before the deciding game: the circumstances might change, but the approach would not.
“I didn’t think it changed too much from when we were down. I think this group does a really good job being resilient and having the same attitude that we’re going to be on attack whether we’re in the game, whether we’re behind, or whether we’re up big.”
— Brian Curley, Amarillo Starting Pitcher Used In Relief In Game 2
Frisco tightened the margin again in the fifth. Max Wagner, Arturo Disla and Perich loaded the bases with singles against Logan Mercado, and Gleider Figuereo’s sacrifice fly made it 6-5.
Mercado stopped the squeeze there. He finished four innings of one-run ball with two strikeouts and no walks, retiring the RoughRiders in order in the sixth and seventh. Mason Marriott worked around Perich’s leadoff single for a scoreless eighth, sending Amarillo to the ninth still protecting the lead it had built in the first.
The Sod Poodles had gone quiet against Frisco’s bullpen, but Walters opened the ninth with a single. Torin then reached down for an 0-2 slider from Bryan Magdaleno and drove it into the left-center gap, where it carried to the wall on a hop. Walters scored, and Torin stood at second with his third double and Amarillo’s first run since the opening inning.
After McLaughlin walked and Torin advanced to third on an Ortiz flyout, Jones punched a ground ball through the right side against Jonathan Brand. Torin came home for an 8-5 lead. Jones finished 3-for-5 with two RBIs and a run scored; Walters went 2-for-4 with two RBIs and a run.
Those insurance runs became the championship runs.
Alfred Morillo retired Paxton Kling to begin the bottom of the ninth before Walcott singled. Dylan Dreiling followed with a line drive that carried over the wall in center, cutting Amarillo’s lead to one.
Morillo had no margin left, but he got Wagner to fly out to Jones in center and struck out Disla to finish it. The save belonged to Morillo, the win to Mercado and the South Division championship to a Sod Poodles club that absorbed a grand slam, watched a six-run lead shrink to one and still found one more gap when it needed it.
Curley had supplied the fitting description before the first pitch.
“But I really do well in those more chaos-based environments where it’s like go, go, and then just adapt.”
— Brian Curley, Amarillo Starting Pitcher Used In Relief In Game 2