Walk-off Grand Slam Moves Fireflies Past Pelicans

By Sam Weiderhaft

Cubs’ 2020 first-round pick Ed Howard hit his first professional home run in the defeat

The Columbia Fireflies took a three-game to two lead on the Myrtle Beach Pelicans by scoring six unanswered runs and winning on a walk-off grand slam in the 10th inning 6-2 on Saturday night. Myrtle Beach has now lost three games in a row and drops to six games under .500 at 20-26. Columbia moves up to 25-18 and sits four games out of the division lead with the victory.

Saturday was highlighted by the first professional home run for Cubs’ 2020 first-round pick Ed Howard (1-5, HR, RBI) who hit a solo shot to lead off the game. Ethan Hearn (1-4, RBI) brought home the other run for the Pelicans in the first inning, while Jacob Wetzel (2-5) had a multi-hit performance.

Manuel Espinoza started the game for Myrtle Beach and tossed five scoreless innings, while Jarod Wright (0-1) gave up the walk-off grand slam in the 10th inning to take his first loss of the season. Carlos Ocampo gave up the tying run in the eighth inning and tallied his team-leading fourth blown save of the season.

Darryl Collins (1-5, HR, 4 RBI) decided the game with the grand slam in the 10th inning for his fourth homer of the season. Juan Carlos Negret (1-4, HR, RBI) tied the game with a solo home run in the eighth inning.

The Fireflies threw four different pitchers with the last reliever Patrick Smith (2-1) taking the win after striking out four of the six batters he faced in the ninth and 10th innings.

First of many. @ehowardIV goes off the foul pole for his first career homer! #MBPelicans pic.twitter.com/0muvAI34M2

— Myrtle Beach Pelicans (@Pelicanbaseball) June 26, 2021

The game started with a bang as Howard pulled a home run down the left-field line that clanked off the foul pole for his first of the season and quickly Myrtle Beach was up 1-0. After the following two batters were retired, Pablo Aliendo was hit by a pitch, and both Ryan Reynolds and Jordan Nwogu drew walks off Fireflies’ starter Matt Stil to load the bases. Hearn came up and dribbled a soft ground ball back to the pitcher where he beat the throw to first and collected an RBI. The Pelicans would fail to score the rest of the game after going up 2-0 after the top of the first.

It took Columbia until the seventh inning to bring a run in. Diego Hernandez and Felix Familia both walked with one out to put two runners on. Ocampo came on to replace Danis Correa and balked to advance the runners to second and third. Gage Hughes came up and hit a bouncer to Luis Verdugo at third that hit off his leg and allowed Hernandez to score the first run of the game for Columbia. Ocampo retired the following two batters to limit the scoring.

Ocampo gave up the tying run on Negret’s seventh home run of the year to deep center field with two outs in the eighth. With no scoring in the ninth, the game was headed to extras.

The Pelicans went down in order in their half of the 10th, while Wright was brought in to pitch to the Fireflies in the bottom half. With Hughes starting on second base, Matthew Schmidt started with a flyout to Wetzel in center that advanced the winning run to third. Both Maikel Garcia and Herard Gonzalez were intentionally walked to load the bases and cause a force out at any base. Colling stepped up and belted Wright’s first pitch to right field to end the game with a walk-off grand slam.

The series will conclude with the sixth game on Sunday. First pitch is slated for 5:05 p.m.