Matt Gorski's third HR of game a walk-off shot

GREENSBORO ― There's hot. There's silly hot. And then there's Matt Gorski hot.

It's the kind of hot streak that is simply hard to believe, even when it's true.

Gorski cracked the first pitch thrown in the bottom of the ninth inning for his third home run of the game ― a missile over the wall in left-center field and onto the grass of Sunbrella Hill ― lifting the Greensboro Grasshoppers to a 4-3 victory over the Bowling Green Hot Rods at First National Bank Field on a warm Sunday afternoon.

Gorski flipped the bat and wore a wide grin as he rounded the bases, launching his helmet high into the air halfway down the third-base line and trotting into a mob of his awaiting jubilant teammates, who doused him with water and tore the jersey from his back.

"It was really cool to see everybody waiting when I got around third base," Gorski said. "When I was out in center field in the top of the inning, I was thinking, 'What a storybook ending it would be to a week like this if I could hit my first-ever walk-off home run.' It's just such a cool way to end it, and to see everybody so happy."

He finished the day 3-for-4 with three home runs and all four of the Hoppers' RBIs.

In the last seven days, Gorski is 11-for-28 (.393) with nine home runs and 12 RBIs. He hit eight of those homers to help the Hoppers (17-71) split this six-game series with the division-leading Hot Rods (23-15).

"It's a confidence thing," Gorski said. "Sometimes hits and home runs come in bunches. So when you hit one out, you think, 'OK, I can do this; maybe I can hit two, maybe I can hit three.' Before this week, I hadn't had a two-homer game since high school. And now I've got two two-homer games and a three-homer game in a week. It's crazy, right? It's one of those things you just don't expect to happen, but when it does happen, it's definitely pretty cool."

Gorski, a 24-year-old outfielder/first baseman, leads the South Atlantic league in, well, pretty much everything.

He ranks first in home runs (17), extra-base hits (22), RBIs (37), runs scored (34), slugging percentage (.754), OPS (1.131) and games played (37). His .294 batting average ranks among the top-20 qualifiers, and his team-high nine stolen bases ranks 15th in the league. Gorski has hit safely in 10 of his last 12 games, and he has been on base in 33 of 37 games played.

Gorski started his big day with a two-run shot in the first inning, a line drive down the left-field line that cleared the wall and landed among the first row of tables in the Sunbrella Shade Zone picnic area.

Leading off the fourth inning, he hit his longest home run of the day, a mammoth 445-foot blast past the light tower in left field. The ball left his bat with a 109 mph exit velocity.

In the ninth, Gorski again led off, this time against side-arming left-handed reliever Joe LaSorsa (2-2).

"I'd faced that same guy earlier in the week, and I hit a home run off of him on a fastball away," the right-handed hitting Gorski said. "So I watched my at-bat previously, and I knew they had gotten me on some sliders that were good pitches. I was sitting on that pitch as the first pitch, and he threw it in the zone."

Swing. Crack! Bat flip. Ballgame.

NOTES

• This was the Hoppers' third walk-off victory of the season, with game-winning hits from Jack Herman, Yoyner Fajardo and now Matt Gorski.
• Greensboro improved to 7-6 in one-run games this season, and the Hoppers have won six of their last seven one-run games.
• Right-handed reliever Cameron Junker (2-0), the fifth Hoppers pitcher of the day, struck out one in a scoreless ninth inning to pick up the win.
• Hard-throwing starter Jared Jones, a 20-year-old right-hander rated as Pittsburgh's No. 12 prospect by MLB Pipeline, gave up three runs in the first inning. He was unlucky, as the first two batters of the game reached on infield hits and came around to score. Jones settled in and shut down the Hot Rods for the rest of his outing, striking out five in five innings. He ranks seventh in the South Atlantic league with 44 strikeouts in 33 2/3 innings.
• Hudson Head, a 21-year-old outfielder rated by MLB Pipeline as the No. 22 prospect in Pittsburgh's farm system, went 1-for-3 with a walk and a run scored. Head has hits in 12 of his last 15 games. He has reached base in 20 of his last 21 games.
• Sammy Siani, a 21-year-old outfielder, went 0-for-3 to snap a five-game hitting streak. He is and is 7-for-22 (.318) with two doubles, a home run and two RBIs in the last six games. Siani was the 37th overall pick in the 2019 draft, a high school player selected between the first and second rounds.
• First baseman Jacob Gonzalez, the reigning South Atlantic League player of the week, went 0-for-3 and was robbed of a hit on a diving catch by Hot Rods second baseman Ronny Simon. ... Gonzalez has hit safely in nine of 11 games since his promotion to Greensboro, going 18-for-41 (.438) with four home runs and 10 RBIs. ... Gonzalez, the 23-year-old son of former big-league All-Star Luis Gonzalez, batted .393 with 11 doubles, four home runs and 16 RBIs in 24 games for the Bradenton Marauders before his promotion to Greensboro. He was a second-round pick of the San Francisco Giants in 2017, turning pro right out of high school, and is in his fifth minor-league season.