MOBILE, Ala. ? In a series that’s gone back and forth so much, it’s only fitting that the Blue team would rally for a come-from-behind win of its own after being on the opposite end in Wednesday’s game three. That’s exactly what happened Thursday night at Stanky Field.
Leading off the bottom of the seventh, freshman catcher Brent Mitchell got the rally started when he hit a towering solo homer that cut the Red team’s lead to 4-3. He topped that hit an inning later with a game-winning, RBI-double as the Blue team overcame a late 4-2 deficit to win game four 5-4 and even the Red and Blue World Series at two games apiece.
The Red team got off to a fast start against Blue team starting pitcher Lance Baxter. Clint Reynolds singled and stole second leading off the game, then came home to score on an RBI-double from Zach Grichor. Jake Overstreet brought Grichor home two batters later on a fielder’s choice, and the Red team jumped out to a 2-0 lead.
Three consecutive singles to start the bottom of the first helped the Red team get one run back when Nathaniel Lami came home to score on Brandon Brown’s RBI-single off of Red team starter Matt Jackson. Both starting pitchers settled down and neither team plated another run until the fifth inning.
Reynolds chased Jackson from the game with a leadoff triple to start the fifth. Shane LeBlanc came on in relief and Reynolds scored to extend the Red team’s lead to 3-1 on a fielder’s choice off the bat of Grichor. With his second RBI of the night, Grichor notched his team-leading 15th RBI of the fall in only the 10th game played.
David Doss came on in relief of Jackson to start the bottom of the firth. The Blue team answered again when Brad Hammac singled and came around to score on Lami’s RBI-single, and the Red team’s lead was cut to 3-2.
Both relievers worked scoreless sixth innings, but LeBlanc ran into trouble in the sixth. He issued a leadoff walk to Grichor, who was advanced to third on a Doss sacrifice bunt and came around to score on an Overstreet double. LeBlanc bounced back and struck out the next two batters to keep the Red team’s lead at 4-2.
Michael Raia came on in relief of Doss to start the eighth. Raia earned the win in game three by allowing one run on one hit in four innings of relief Wednesday. The first batter he faced was Mitchell, who hit his towering homer off the lettering on the left-field scoreboard. Hammac followed with a single and advanced to second on a wild pitch, setting up an intentional walk to Lami.
Another wild pitch moved both runners into scoring position with one out, but Raia recovered and struck out Dominic Diaz and Brown to escape the jam.
Brown relieved LeBlanc to start the eighth and quickly surrendered a leadoff double to Stuart Barton. Brown bounced back to get a strikeout, a fly out and another strikeout to strand Barton at third and keep his Blue team’s deficit at one run, trailing 4-3.
Ryan Bohanan drilled a ball to deep left field leading off the bottom of the eighth, and left fielder Brad Montgomery looked like he might be able to make a tough catch before he tripped and fell and the dropped safely. Bohanan was credited with a double and Sean Laird brought him home with an RBI-single to right field that tied the score at 4-4.
Still recovering from injuries, Laird and Adam Heisler are both allowed to use pinch runners when they reach base in the World Series. Jake Crain filled that role for Laird, and he advanced to second on a sacrifice bunt from Chris Davis. Mitchell drilled an RBI-double down the left field line to give the Blue team a 5-4 lead going to the ninth.
Brown came back out to pitch the ninth and issued a leadoff walk to Grichor. David Doss then hit a liner right back up the middle that glanced off of Brown’s glove and rolled slowly out to shortstop Michael Meredith for an infield single.
Overstreet flew out to center, and Brad Hook walked to load the bases with only one out for Montgomery. In game three Wednesday night, Montgomery hit a game-winning, RBI-single in the bottom of the eighth. Brown was up to the task, as he got Montgomery to hit a grounder to Meredith who flipped to Diaz at second, who then fired to Hammac at first to complete the game-ending double play.
It was the second consecutive night that the game ended with the winning team turning a double play with the potential tying run on second base and only one out in the ninth. This time, the Blue team came out on top, and the series evened at 2-2.
Notes: Nathaniel Lami extended his fall hitting streak to nine games with a first-inning single ... game four was the third consecutive game to feature a game-winning hit ... Mitchell’s double won game four, Montgomery’s single won game three, and Overstreet’s double won game two ... game four featured the same starting pitchers from game one ... Jackson allowed one run in the first of both games and Baxter allowed two runs in the first frame of each ... there has been at least one home run hit in all four games ... a starting pitcher has not factored in a decision since game one ... the last pitcher for each team has recorded either a win, a loss or a save in each of the last three games ... Brown has closed out both of the Blue team’s wins, earning one win and one save ... each team’s leadoff hitter recorded three hits as Lami went 3-for-3 for the Blue team and Reynolds went 3-for-4 for the Red ... they both reached base safely in their first four plate appearances ... Johnson assisted with color commentary for the first seven innings of the webcast ... the teams have traded wins through the first four games of the World Series, with the Red team taking games one and three, and the Blue team taking games two and four.
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