Talk about a team in need of a moment. The Waynesboro Generals needed that ninth inning Tuesday night.
Ten games into their 2015 season, the Generals were three outs away from a 4-6 start, with losses on the front end, middle and back end of a homestand staring them down.
Waynesboro trailed 4-2 going into the bottom of the ninth against the Charlottesville Tom Sox, who had controlled the game throughout, taking the lead in the second inning and never looking back.
The Generals had two players – cleanup hitter Jose Estrada and first baseman Kevin Phillips – ejected from the game, along with coach D.J. King.
Kevin Fagan, a popular player from the 2013 league champs, left after getting hit by a pitch on his left wrist in the eighth.
Bruised and battered was Waynesboro.
The Generals didn’t blink.
A leadoff single, an error, an RBI single, a sac fly, a stolen base, a pop fly single, and just like that, Waynesboro had three runs in a wild ninth inning that capped a wild night at Linco Park at Kate Collins Field.
By rights, that was a loss. Charlottesville, to say the least, did everything right for eight and a half innings, getting a great start out of Hayden McCutcheon (five innings, one run, three hits) and timely hitting to take a 4-2 lead into the ninth.
The Tom Sox opened the door with sloppy defense – three errors and a misplayed fly ball on what turned out to be the walk-off RBI single by Waynesboro’s Shane Dressler.
Waynesboro put itself into position to take advantage.
You could see it the way the team marked the win. Generals flooded the field after the ball landed harmlessly in the grass behind shortstop on Dressler’s game-winning hit.
They’re 10 games into a 42-game season, but this team needed that win.
And they made it happen. A summer that could have gone down a different path took a good fork in the road, hopefully back on the right track.
Look back at that fly ball hitting the turf a little later on. It will turn out to be significant.
– Column by Chris Graham
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