(Story courtesy Augusta GreenJackets)
NORTH AUGUSTA -: A missed fly ball in center field with two outs in the ninth inning gave the Augusta GreenJackets (20-14, 55-45) their fourth walk-off win, completing a massive comeback to steal an 8-7 win against the Columbia Fireflies (17-17, 51-49) Friday night.
Augusta, playing as the Pavos Salvajes tonight, entered the bottom of the ninth with a tie game and a chance to snag a third win in four games against Columbia. A hit and a walk put two men on, but Andy Basora struck out back-to-back hitters to pull within an out of extras. With men at second and third, Basora battled to a full count against Junior Garcia before Garcia clubbed a fly ball to deep center field. Sean Gamble chased back to the warning track and had the ball in his mitt, but it kicked off of his glove and onto the grass for a game-winning run.
The comeback was necessary as the Pavos found themselves trailing 6-1 in the bottom of the 6th, with the Fireflies taking a big lead early for the second time this week. Forced into a spot start, Luis Arestigueta battled hard to allow two runs in four innings, but fell apart with two outs in the fifth to allow the lead to balloon. Roni Cabrera hit a three-run homer with two outs, and Connor Rasmussen left the yard one batter later to push the advantage to 6-1.
Augusta’s comeback began in earnest in the sixth, scoring three runs as they chased starter Darwin Rodriguez from the game and continued their weeklong assault on the Firefly bullpen. Austin Machado, Cooper McMurray, and Garcia all brought runs home to pull closer, before the Pavos tied the game in the seventh on a triple from Conor Essenburg and a single from Juan Mateo.
The Fireflies woke back up to regain the lead in the top of the 8th, using two walks and an RBI single from Sean Gamble to hop back in front against Cristobal Abreu. In the bottom of the inning, though, Augusta loaded the bases against Adrian Belen and enabled Essenburg to tie the game up once more via a sacrifice fly.
Columbia seemed poised to score once again in the ninth, as Abreu battled fractured command once again. Abreu walked two and gave up a single for the second straight inning, loading the bases with one out for Ricson Gonzalez. Gonzalez got ahead on Abreu, but rolled a groundball to McMurray at first, who turned a brilliant 3-2-3 double play to keep the tie and set up the walk-off.
The GreenJackets now have won three of four games this week, and five of their last six games overall. Augusta has scored eight runs in each of its last five games, and have walked six times or more in every game this week. The Jackets go for the series win tomorrow night, with team leader in quality starts Derek Vartanian on the mound.
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