Photo Credit: Madison Blandford/Cleburne Railroaders
CLEBURNE, TX – The Winnipeg Goldeyes battled until the last pitch in game three of their series against the Cleburne Railroaders Friday. A late back and forth battle ended in Cleburne’s favour by a final score of 5-4.
Box Score
A weather delay pushed the game back an hour, and first pitch wasn’t until 8:00 p.m. Juan Hillman got the start for Cleburne and he was perfect through 5.1 innings until
Keshawn Lynch broke up the bid with an infield single.
Joey Matulovich took the ball for the Goldeyes and pitched well, tossing six strong innings of two hit ball. He gave up a run, walked two, and struck out four.
The scoring started in the bottom of the second inning, when Carter Aldrete drove a double to left and brought home Hill Alexander to make the game 1-0.
Kevin García tied the game up in the top of the seventh on a base hit to left field that scored
Jake McMurray. On the same play
Max Murphy would be cut down at the plate trying to score the go-ahead run.
In the bottom of the seventh, Aldrete would get the Goldeyes again with a two-run home run to take the lead back and making it 3-1.
In the top of the ninth inning Murphy blasted American Association career home run number 100 over the batter’s eye in to pull the Goldeyes within one. A couple of hits later.
Ryan Holgate rifled a base hit to left scoring
Miles Simington to tie the game. A sacrifice bunt by García moved the runners into scoring position. With two out,
Andy Armstrong hit a short flair into right field,
Gio Brusa scored as the go-ahead run to make the score 4-3 Winnipeg. Holgate slid into home plate hard and Cleburne’s catcher Michael Berglund look exception and shoved Holgate back to the turf. Holgate shoved back, causing both benches and bullpens to spill out into the area around home plate.
Once the dust settled a weather delay was called due to thunder and lightning in the area. Berglund ended up getting ejected for instigating the brawl.
In the bottom of the ninth inning after a 20-minute delay,
Nick Trogirlic-Iverson was finishing his second inning of work looking to earn the win. A walk to Brian O’ Grady would set the two-out stage to Jaxx Groshans who entered in as the replacement catcher after Berglund was ejected. A mistake left right over the heart of the plate would end up over the left-field wall and Cleburne walked-off Winnipeg 5-4 on what is an early contender for game of the year.
Postgame, manager
Logan Watkins felt that his team’s fight was in the right place. “Good to see some fight from the guys,” Watkins said. “Got the bats going against maybe the best closer in the league so yeah that was good to see. And then we just made one mistake there in the bottom of the ninth to give up the game. But we have to get the bats going earlier in these games we kind of wait too little too late sometimes thankfully today we took the lead and just couldn't quite hold on to it. I mean, kind of tough to send Iverson back out there after a weather delay. Still thought he looked good going out for the 9th and had a couple strike outs in the 9th and just made one mistake.”
The Goldeyes’ Home Opener at Blue Cross Park is scheduled for Tuesday, May 21 at 6:30 p.m. against the Chicago Dogs.
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