Wild Pitch Walk-Off Caps Opening Night
AUGUSTA, SC – The Fireflies showed excellent patience at the plate, drawing four walks to set up a walk-off wild pitch to score Erick Torres to beat the Myrtle Beach Pelicans 6-5 Tuesday night at Segra Park. Columbia entered the ninth inning trailing 5-4. After a Jhonny Perdomo line out
AUGUSTA, SC – The Fireflies showed excellent patience at the plate, drawing four walks to set up a walk-off wild pitch to score Erick Torres to beat the Myrtle Beach Pelicans 6-5 Tuesday night at Segra Park.
Columbia entered the ninth inning trailing 5-4. After a Jhonny Perdomo line out to right field to start the inning, Scarlyn Lebron (BS, L 0-1) lost control, walking Milo Rushford, Erick Torres and Blake Mitchell to set up an 11-pitch battle with Daniel Vazquez that ended in a walk to tie the game. Next, Myrtle Beach changed arms and brought in Garrett Brown to face Derlin Figueroa. On the fourth pitch of the at-bat, Brown sailed a pitch to the backstop, allowing Torres to come around and win the game for the Fireflies. It was the Fireflies second walk-off winner on Opening Night in the last three years and their first walk-off win since Lizandro Rodriguez scored on a walk-off balk against Fredericksburg June 24, 2023.
The Fireflies Opening Night walk-off winner in 2022 came off the bat of Erick Pena. He hit a three-run blast to upend the Augusta GreenJackets. It’s only fair that Pena got the bats rolling again on Opening Night in 2024. The lefty launched a two-run blast, the first homer of the Fireflies season to give the club their first lead of the game, 2-1 in the bottom of the second inning.
Pena’s blast wasn’t the only homer of the evening. In the eighth inning while the team was down three, Derlin Figueroa smashed his first Fireflies homer to the parking lot to score Vazquez and make it a one-run game.
The Pelicans drove ahead in the third inning. Andy Garriola kicked-off a three-hit performance with a three-run homer that knocked Logan Martin out of the game and gave Myrtle Beach a 4-2 lead. The Pelicans added a run in the seventh on a Garriola sac fly to center to plate Reginald Preciado.
Nicholas Regalado (W, 1-0) closed out the game with a scoreless ninth and two punchouts to keep Columbia within striking distance. The bullpen worked six frames Tuesday and has yet to allow an earned run. This season, Columbia’s pen has spun 20 innings and allowed just a single earned run. Luis Polanco was the first arm out of the pen tonight, working 1.2 scoreless innings before handling the ball to Jacob Widener who cleaned things up and kept the slate clean for 1.1 innings. Finally, Jeremy Rosado allowed a single, unearned run in two innings.
Columbia continues their series with the Pelicans tomorrow night at 7:05 pm. RHP Blake Wolters gets the nod for the Fireflies and Myrtle Beach counters with RHP Mason McGwire.
The Fireflies 2024 home slate begins Tuesday, April 9 against the Myrtle Beach Pelicans at 7:05 pm. Tickets for the season are on sale now. Go to ColumbiaFireflies.com for more information about promotions and ticket pricing for this summer.