Soddies by Morning: Starting Pitching and Groover Come Up Big To Help the Soddies Sweep the Double Header
For the second time in 2025 the Sod Poodles swept their double header. The Bomb City boys are officially the hottest that they’ve been the entire season after starting May 5-2 and on the verge of taking their third straight series. Let’s take a quick look at the double header on Thursday night to see how the team is staying so hot.
GAME #1: 6-5 AMARILLO
Cesar Gomez got a suprising start for Amarillo after making his return from Reno for the second time this season. The Reliever gave Amarillo what they needed, tossing a season high 4 innings, allowing 4 hits on 2 runs and 2 earned, with 3 strikeouts and no walks. That was the first time all season that the Sod Poodles had broken the rotation. One of Gomez’ two runs would come in the first after Chris Newell lead off the game with a double before Damon Keith would give Tulsa an early lead. The Sod Poodles offense went to work early after a pair of walks Caleb Roberts torched a 103 MPH double to center scoring a pair and giving Amarillo a 2-1 lead. That was Roberts sixth straight game with a hit despite not playing every day lately. Catcher Christian Cerda would tack on one more in the first driving in a run after reaching on an error by Sean McClain.
Tulsa cut the lead back to one after a pair of singles and a Ezequiel Pagan sacrifice fly brought home Aaron Branch. After those early runs, from the bottom of the second inning on, the starters would set down a combined total of 15 straight batters before Luke Albright relieved Gomez in the fifth where he would wind up striking out the side, despite a runner reaching third after getting on a by getting hit by a pitch. Three straight singles for Amarillo from Andy Weber, Manuel Pena, and Tommy Troy would help extend the lead to 5-2 after he drove in one and another scored on a throwing error.
Even in seven inning game it wasn’t quite over yet. If one thing is for certain, no Alfred Morillo outing outside of one in 2025 has exactly been smooth sailing, but he seems to always get the job done in the end. Morillo entered the game with a three run lead but walked the first man that he saw, then a single to Pagan before Taylor Young and Sean McClain smoked back to back doubles luckily the tying run was cut down on a Roberts to Weber to Cerda relay to save the lead. In typical Morillo fashion after it got close he tightened the screws and closed out the Soddies win in game one by striking out the next two batters he faced, sealing a seven inning victory. For a change the Sod Poodles weren’t the ones being haunted by errors as Tulsa commited three to Amarillo’s 0 in the contest.
GAME #2 – 5-4 AMARILLO
We had a good old fashion pitchers duel in number two. Roman Angelo put together a really solid outing and looked arguably the sharpest he had been all season early in the game. He tallied four of his six strikeouts in the first two innings and looked didn’t allow a hit until the fifth, when the rain started to trickle down as the double header was winding down. Tulsa put a man on for Ezequiel Pagan who drove a ball on to the lawn in right for the first runs of the game. Tulsa would tack on more damage in the sixth after Angelo walked a pair before Landon Sims relieved him and walked the first batter that he saw. Sims would get it to two outs before Jose Fernandez sailed a throw at shortstop that would have ended the inning, but instead two runs scored on the play driving the Tulsa lead to 4-0, before Sims worked out of a bases loaded jam to give Amarillo a chance.
Drillers starter Jerming Rosario threw an extremely economical 69 pitches in 5.1 innings, only allowing a first inning double to Tommy Troy in his first five innings of work and the Sod Poodles didn’t even draw blood against him while he was in the game. The only issue for Rosario was he gave up a sixth inning single to catcher Drake Osborn and walked Christian Robinson before being replaced by Jorge Benitez. Benitez would get Conticello to flyout, but would have no such luck with LuJames Groover.
With the rain still falling like the end of “The Natural” and a Hodgetown staple of Sergio Leone’s main theme from the “The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly” echoing in a 3-2 count, Groover clocked a 79 MPH slider 390 feet to center field, 99 MPH off the bat, bringing the Sod Poodles within striking distance at 4-3 going into the seventh inning. Groover’s seventh bomb was the first for Amarillo in both games and put him in sole possesion of third place in homers in the Texas League this season. “The guy is a funky slot lefty with a lot of movement going on so I had to have the right approach. I was honestly looking for a fastball, trying to get something to drive to right center, so I can see everything because he’s pretty much a 5 pitch mix to righties, but I got a slider over the plate.” Groover said postgame on Thursday Night. “It was honestly a good pitch just up in the zone, but I was able to handle it and put a good swing on it.” With one swing he brought life back into a remaining Hodgetown crowd that had been rained on for a good two innings prior to that and set them up for a photo finish in the seventh.
Consecutive doubles from Jack Hurley and Ivan Melendez tied the game, and Drake Osborn singled followed by a Kristian Robinson seven pitch walk to load the bases for Tommy Troy who opened the hit column for Amarillo in the first. Baseball is a game of inches and Troy delivered just exactly enough, he grounded a ball to short and Jean Walters who replaced Melendez on the basepath darted for home just barely making it to the plate before catcher Yeiner Fernandez could recover after a wide throw from first basemen John Rhodes.
The Soddies will be searching for their third straight series win with Jose Cabrera (2-1, 4.76 ERA – 4.34 FIP – 3.60 xFIP) taking on Jacob Meader (6.16 ERA – 4.67 FIP – 4.65 xFIP) who was teammates with Sod Poodles relievers Alec Baker and and Zane Russell at Dallas Baptist in 2022.
