Soddies by Morning: Sour Start to the Road Trip as the Sod Poodles Drop the First Two in Springfield

The Soddies embarked on a historically long road trip on Sunday after winning the last three series coming in. Unfortunately Amarillo will now have to sweep the remaining games to keep that streak alive. 

The highlight of the night was Spencer Giesting. The Amarillo southpaw put his stamp on the series early, tossing what might’ve been the best start of the season for Amarillo (the last two Dylan Ray starts certainly are up there too). Giesting tossed the longest outing for Sod Poodles pitching seven full innings, on 93 pitches on 58 strikes, giving up 3 hits, striking out 8, and walking 2. The only damage came on a solo shot from the Cardinals #6 prospect Leo Bernal in the third inning. Unfortunately he didn't pick up his fourth win despite leaving with a 2-1 lead.

Everything fell apart in the eighth for the Sod Poodles. Zach Barnes and Conor Grammes together surrendered 7 straight one-out baserunners to Springfield (eight baserunners in the frame, Barnes surrendered six and Grammes two) resulting in a six run inning for the Cardinals, and a 7-2 lead that would be the blow that they would need to win game one.

The bullpen didn’t have their greatest night, but the lineup didn’t cash in on any opportunities early, leaving nine runners on base in the first five innings. The only Amarillo runs came on a Tommy Troy groundout in the first inning and an Ivan Melendez groundout in the third to at that point give Giesting a lead. The first five batters in the lineup (Robinson, Troy, Groover, Pena, and Fernandez) accounted for all seven Amarillo hits, with Robinson, Troy, and Fernandez picking up multi-hit games in the loss. As a team the lineup ultimately was held without an extra base hit against Cardinals pitching on Tuesday. 

Wednesday felt like a family member of Tuesday’s game. 

Roman Angelo doesn’t look like he has enjoyed facing Springfield this year. In his first two starts of the season Angelo gave up seven homers to the Cardinals, a number that would still lead the Texas League today, before putting together great starts after that series only surrendering two in his next four starts and steering his season in the right direction. The Cardinals got to Angelo again on Wednesday and wasted no time doing it. Nathan Church took the second pitch that Springfield hitting saw and deposited it into the seats. Chase Davis hit his third homer of the season, all coming off Angelo to tie the game at 2-2 in the first inning. Davis would reach in a three plate appearances against Angelo.

The Sod Poodles took back the lead in the second inning thanks to an error by JJ Wetherholt that scored a pair to make it 4-2 Amarillo.

The Amarillo starter and Springfield starter Pete Hansen would settle in for a few innings before the Cardinals loaded the bases and the familiar face of Chase Davis was hit by a pitch to score a run. Angelo would keep the damage to a minimum with that being the only run in the fifth. A Brody Moore single would draw the Cardinals even with Amarillo in the leading to Zach Barnes replacing him in the sixth and drawing a inning ending double play from JJ Wetherholt.

Jack Hurley would give the Sod Poodles their final lead, finally cracking the home run column on the season, with a solo shot to draw the lead to 5-4. That home run was only Amarillo’s second extra base hit of the series with the first coming off of the bat of Hurley earlier in the game for a double in the fourth. Melendez would add a third in the ninth with a double of his own.

Last week Dylan Ray said walks can turn into three-run shots and that’s exactly what happened to Jhosmer Alvarez on Wednesday. A pair of walks lead to a 3-run blast by Ramon Mendoza to give Springfield a 7-5 lead where the score would go final.

Tommy Troy extended his hitting strike to 13 games in the first inning, slashing .333/455/.400/.855 in that stretch with a .429 BAPIP. 

Amarillo once again failed to drive in a run with runners in scoring position going 0-8 on Wednesday, pushing the series total to 1-13 (the one hit didn’t score a run, but instead moved the runners over.)

First Pitch for game three is at 6:35 PM at Hammons Field.