Soddies by Morning: Offensive Shut Out Spoils Roman Angelo’s Good Start in Midland
Roman Angelo has been a road warrior in his two starts away from Hodgetown this season. The Fresno State Bulldog has only given up 1 earned run in his two road starts on this season, a run that was inherited and allowed to score by the bullpen in the seventh inning in Frisco, including pitching 5 shutout innings on Thursday night in what turned into a pitchers duel between two pitchers with some of the highest ERA’s in the Texas League. In Angelo’s 5 innings of work he made it a point to get ahead early, getting the first strike to 13 of the 18 batters he faced all night and 9 of the last 10. While he didn’t quite catch his 6 strikeout total from Frisco, he did manage to strikeout 5 rockhounds with 4 less outs and tie his season low for walks, before manager Javier Colina went to the bullpen after the right hander threw 88 pitches for 55 strikes.
Alec Baker took the ball and Junior Perez took him deep on the third pitch for the first run of the ball game for either team in five and a half innings. The Rockhounds would tag Baker again in his second inning out of the pen when Luke Mann doubled the lead to score the final run of the night for both teams. Landon Sims took the mound to close out the night in the eigth for the Sod Poodles and threw his second straight scoreless outing. The staff on Thursday only allowed one Midland baserunner into scoring position all night, that came when Brendan Milone stole second base in the fouth inning against Roman Angelo before the Amarillo right hander struck out Henry Bolte to end the inning.
The Athletics #27 prospect Chen Zhong-Ao Zhuang took the mound for the Rockhounds sporting a 6.98 ERA and put on his best performance of 2025. A Tommy Troy first inning single was the only hit of the night against Zhuang, Conticello followed that with a walk before the Midland starter sat down 14 straight Sod Poodles before a rare Jack Hurley walk in the sixth. Zhuang would finish the night with 7 strikeouts and only two walks before giving the ball to the former Texas A&M Aggie Micah Dallas.
Amarillo wouldn’t find much more success against the Midland bullpen either, as the combination of Dallas, CD Pelham, Mitch Myers, and Edgar Sanchez would shut down the Sod Poodles for 3.2 innings to close out their second victory of the series in Game 3 of the series. The Midland pitchers thus far in the series have managed to stump the Sod Poodles with runners in scoring position, obviously holding them hitless on Thursday and 2-27 total in the three games so far this week.
We haven’t talked much about the Amarillo bats so far and there just wasn’t much to speak of on the evening. Outfielder Kristian Robinson had his 18 on-base streak snapped, going 0-4 with four strikeouts. The hottest bat in the Soddies lineup and Texas League leader in average so far this season Jose Fernandez had the night off. Andy Weber picked up the only extra base hit, clubbing a double to lead off the top of the eigth before the lineup went down 1-2-3 behind him.
The Sod Poodles will look to find a spark for the bats that have hasn’t scored more than five runs in their last 5 contests. The fast working Jose Cabrera will be on the mound for the first time since picking up his first victory last Sunday with 6 innings of three run baseball despite allowing eight hits in the process. Midland will throw their other Aggie as Mitch Johnson will climb the hill for the Rockhounds, starting the 2025 season with a 6.87 ERA despite a 4.61 FIP, while striking out 24 in 18.1 innigs pitched.
