Trailing 5-4 in the bottom of the seventh, the Bowie Baysox rallied for the second-consecutive night, ultimately taking down the Harrisburg Senators 8-5 on Saturday night at Prince George’s Stadium.
The Baysox battled back-and-forth with the Senators early. With Harrisburg plating the game’s first two runs against left-handed starter Cade Povich in the third. Jacob Young drove in a run with an RBI double, before scoring himself on a fielding error from shortstop Jackson Holliday. Billy Cook led off the bottom half of the frame with a triple for Bowie off Harrisburg’s left-handed starter Mitchell Parker. With two outs, John Rhodes punched an infield single to third that saw Cook scamper home to get the Baysox on the board and cut the deficit in half.
In the fourth, the see-saw nature of the affair continued, as Terone Harris doubled to lead off the top half of the inning before scoring on a wild pitch from Povich. Three consecutive hits from Bowie to lead off the bottom half of the fourth, including an RBI knock from Greg Cullen, made the score 3-2 in favor of Harrisburg. Povich worked around a pair of base runners in the fifth to end his day on a high note. In the bottom of the frame, Bowie chased Parker from the mound with a Jud Fabian single and John Rhodes double to put two in scoring positon with one out. Fabian would cross home on a sacrifice fly RBI from Ramon Rodriguez, while Rhodes later raced home from third on a wild pitch, granting Bowie its first lead of the night at 4-3.
The lead would not last particularly long, as back-to-back hits against Baysox reliever Ignacio Feliz drew his day to a close to kick off the seventh. Right-hander Nolan Hoffman entered in place of Feliz. However, a Frankie Tostado sacrifice fly and a run-scoring single from Harris allowed both inherited runners to score and put the game back in the Senators’ favor at 5-4. The inning looked like it could get away from Bowie, as Harrisburg had runners on the corners with two outs, but on an attempted double-steal, Holliday cut off the throw to second and threw out the runner attempting to steal home in Harris. The heads up play got Bowie back to the dugout with just a one-run deficit.
Holliday seized momentum from his heads up play moments ago, and led off the bottom of the seventh against Harrisburg right-hander Jack Sinclair with his first career home run at the Double-A level. His opposite-field shot to left-center tied the game at five. Two batters later, Rhodes got in on the action. His deep shot down the line in left stayed fair and cleared the wall for his ninth long ball of the season, granting the Baysox a 6-5 lead.
Hoffman (W, 1-1) would finish his evening with a scoreless top of the eighth inning, totaling two scoreless frames on the night.
The Baysox padded their lead in the bottom of the eighth against Sinclair (L, 2-3), as Joseph Rosa tripled to lead off the frame, before scoring on the second RBI and third hit of the night for Cullen. Holliday came to the plate with two outs and crushed an RBI double to drive Cullen home and extend Bowie’s lead to 8-5 before right-hander Tyler Burch (S, 1) navigated a scoreless top of the ninth to clinch the victory.
With the win, the Baysox now sit at 42-47 on the season and have won nine of 11 games. Bowie has already clinched the series, but will look to take five of six on the week against Harrisburg when the two sides conclude the series on Sunday, with first pitch scheduled for 1:05 p.m. ET from Prince George’s Stadium.
