Augusta suited for rally with 15 unanswered runs

There are comebacks, and then there are comebacks in Minor League Baseball, where no lead is safe.

Look no further than the Carolina League, where Single-A Augusta scored 15 unanswered runs, all in the last two innings, to stun Charleston in a 15-8 win on Thursday night at Joseph P. Riley Jr. Park.

Heading into the eighth inning, the GreenJackets had only managed two hits even though they had been working good at-bats. After a leadoff strikeout, their luck finally began to even out -- and then some.

Seventeen of the next 21 batters reached base as the Braves affiliate set a season-high scoring output while only recording four outs.

"There's always a good energy with this club," Augusta manager Cody Gabella said. "We're kind of blessed with that. They're a special group where they're going to continue to fight. … The message always, from player to player this year when we're down is: Why not? We don't have anything to do. We don't mind staying an extra hour."

And, boy, was that extra hour exciting.

Third baseman Cory Acton finally got the GreenJackets on the board with a two-run homer to right-center field, which breathed life into the dugout, From there, two singles, a flyout and a pair of walks brought in another run and a bases-loaded situation. E.J. Exposito made it a ballgame by clearing the bases with a double.

Augusta "only" made it an 8-6 ballgame heading into the ninth, but the team felt the game shifting. After putting three batters on base in the ninth, the GreenJackets pulled ahead on Tyler Collins' double to center, still with only one out in the inning.

Augusta reached base every way possible: walk, single, error, ground-rule double, triple. In the end, the team had totaled its highest output since Aug. 3, 2022.

"It did get kind of funny at the end when it got to 14, 15," Acton said. "We wanted to keep going. We didn't care if we were there all night."

Interestingly, these GreenJackets aren't strangers to mind-boggling comebacks. A lot of them were on the other end of one in 2022.

Last season, Gabella managed the Braves' Rookie-level Florida Complex League team with many of the Augusta players from this year's squad. In their third game of the season, the Braves blew a 7-0 ninth-inning lead when 19 FCL Orioles came to the plate and scored 13 runs.

"What happened in Florida was something incredible, same as today," Jair Casanova said through a translator. "When all those runs score in the final inning is always crazy. But it's something that can happen in baseball. It was crazy for sure. … It was nice to have it go our way [today]."

Gabella is hoping these games serve a purpose for his players. He's proud of how they root hard for each other no matter the score -- Acton felt like they were going to win as soon as he homered in the eighth -- and continue to fight until the very last out.

"Baseball's a crazy game," Acton said. "It's moments like this that separate baseball from every other sport. You have to get the last out. Everybody gets their chance. There's no time limit. We took advantage of that opportunity, that's for sure."