The Bowie Baysox walked off the Akron RubberDucks in ten innings on Thursday night, taking their third-straight game over the Southwest Division foe. An early pitching duel eventually saw a tight lead change in favor of Bowie, a late tying run by Akron, and Adam Hall’s sacrifice fly with the bases loaded in the tenth inning to deliver Bowie the 3-2 win. Bowie’s offense was stagnant to start, taking until the third inning to place a baserunner when Dylan Harris singled to left field. Despite the first half of the game saw little action, Bowie showed life in the fifth when Zach Watson cranked a full count, two-out triple to left field, Bowie’s first runner to reach scoring position in the game. While the triple did not end up amounting to any runs, Adam Hall and Gunnar Henderson started the next inning off with a pair of quick singles, both of which were brought home courtesy of a Joey Ortiz double which barely bounced fair.
Akron had Logan Allen to thank for the relatively quiet night, given how dominant he was on the mound through the first two-thirds of the game. He pitched six complete innings while striking out seven and only allowing the two runs by Ortiz. RubberDucks relievers Jerson Ramirez and Nic Enright stepped up as Ramirez took the seventh and Enright controlled the final two frames, holding Bowie to just one baserunner through the ninth inning.
Bowie’s pitching was slightly tenser, as Baysox starter Drew Rom got off to a blazing start, opening with four scoreless innings that included a string of ten consecutive batters retired. The fifth inning got off to a rocky start when Rom allowed his first walk of the evening, which later turned into an earned run after singles from Micah Pries and Marcos Gonzalez to drive in Bo Naylor. Quickly relieving Rom, Tyler Burch struck out the next three batters to halt the brewing rally. Burch would be replaced by Adam Stauffer, who fired the next 2.2 innings for Bowie, striking out another three batters before departing with a runner at third base in the eighth inning. Logan Gillaspie entered with hopes of finishing the job but ended up allowing Akron’s Julian Escobedo to score on a comebacker, tying the game at two. Neither team managed to score in the ninth innings, punching the ticket to Bowie’s first extra-inning game of the year.
Gillaspie (W, 1-0) worked staved off the extra-inning runner on second, as well as a one-out walk with two strikeouts, totaling four on the night, and keeping Akron off of the board in the tenth. Akron opted to insert their third reliever of the night, Jake Miednik, and Zach Watson pulled through again to take advantage of this newfound momentum by bunting on the first pitch he saw. Pinch-hitting, Jordan Westburg was intentionally walked to load the bases for Adam Hall. Miednik’s (L, 0-1) second pitch to Hall was lifted to shallow right field, where George Valera caught the shallow fly and sent the ball toward home. While Valera’s throw did beat Dylan Harris toward home plate, the accuracy was wide right, allowing Harris to sidestep the Akron catcher, and score the winning run.
Bowie jumps up to a record of 7-4 after the victory and has now won each of the first three games of this homestand against the RubberDucks. The Baysox will be able to win their second consecutive series by winning any of their next three games. Bowie and Akron will continue the six-game series on Friday at Prince George’s Stadium, with Brandon Young scheduled to fire the first pitch for Bowie at 7:05 p.m.
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