The Sugar Land Space Cowboys, Triple-A affiliate of the Houston Astros, have had a phenomenal season to this point. After going 93-56 in the regular season, the Space Cowboys swept the Pacific Coast League Championship series outscoring Reno 19-4 in two games.
On Saturday night, they took on the Omaha Storm Chasers, the International League champs, for the Triple-A Championship in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The offense got going early. Jesus Bastidas, Pedro Leon and Shay Whitcomb delivered back to back to back singles to lead off the bottom of the first and load the bases. The offense was able to score one run on a Trey Cabbage sac fly. The next two hitters got out though, as Sugar Land failed to capitalize on the early runners in scoring position opportunity.
After tossing a scoreless first inning, Colton Gordon came out for the second and got rolling. He struck out the side in a perfect second inning getting the fastball up to 93.3 MPH. In the bottom of the second inning, the offense got the first two batters in scoring position on a Quincy Hamilton single and Brice Matthews reaching on an error. Omar Narvaez was up next and drove in both with a 2 run single to center field. Sugar Land got two more on, but Omaha was able to escape without any further damage.
Gordon ran into some trouble in the third. After allowing a one out solo HR to get Omaha on the board, he allowed two singles to put two on the bases. He got the next hitter to fly out to right but with two outs, Brian O’Keefe connected on a 3 run HR to make it 4-3 Omaha.
In the bottom of the third, Sugar Land loaded the bases thanks to a single, a walk and an error. With the bases loaded, Omar Narvaez drew a walk to tie the game at 4. After a strikeout of Bastidas, Leon was able to bring in another run with a bases loaded walk. Next in was Shay Whitcomb, who cleared the bases with a 3 run double as Sugar Land went up 8-4.
The offense continued swinging it well in the 5th. Cooper Hummel led off the inning with a solo home run and two batters later, Brice Matthews connected on a solo home run as well to make it 10-4 Sugar Land. Ray Gaither game in for the top of the 5th and allowed a 2 run home run but the offense responded right back. In the bottom of the inning, Sugar Land put up 3 runs on a Hummel RBI double, Sacco RBI single and Hamilton RBI groundout.
The bullpen got back to lock down with Logan VanWey tossing a scoreless 6th inning and Forrest Whitley striking out 2 over a scoreless 7th inning. Luis Contreras loaded the bases in the 8th inning, but was able to get out of the jam and maintain the 13-6 lead. In the 9th, Wander Suero did what he has done all year and locked down the win with a scoreless inning…
THE SUGAR LAND SPACE COWBOYS ARE THE TRIPLE-A CHAMPIONS!!!
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