On Tuesday, July 21, at Regency Furniture Stadium in Waldorf, the comeback kids did it again: the Blue Crabs rallied to win when down by two runs and at their last at bat. The 11 inning thriller was the Atlantic League’s most exciting game of the 2009 season.
Blue Crabs fans were treated to a great show as they watched the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs storm back to beat the York Revolution 8-7. With the victory, Southern Maryland improved to 13-2 against York this year and 8-1 at home. After being held to a total of four runs in the past four games against Southern Maryland, York managed to surpass that total by the seventh inning of Tuesday night’s game.
The run, scored on a groundout by leftfielder Kennard Jones, broke a 4-4 tie. But being behind in the late-innings does not seem to bother the “Comeback Kids” of Southern Maryland. For the third time in five games, Southern Maryland mounted a furious late-inning comeback.
Trailing 5-4 going into the bottom of the ninth, Blue Crabs’ shortstop Liu Rodriguez led off the inning with a bloop single to shallow left field. All-Star Game MVP Mike Just then grounded to York’s shortstop Anthony Manuel, who not only failed to field the hard-hit ball cleanly, but also threw wildly to first base. With runners on first and third and no outs, the Blue Crabs were only able to tie the game at 5 as Captain Jeremy Owens struck out with the bases loaded to end the inning.
After a scoreless tenth inning, the Revolution scored twice in the top half of the 11th thanks to the fifth error of the year by Owens. Down but not out, the Blue Crabs battled back. With two outs in their half of the eleventh, the Blue Crabs’ Ken Harvey hit a mammoth homerun that barely snuck inside the foul pole to pull the Blue Crabs within one.
Owens came up to bat next, looking to atone for his costly error. On the first pitch he saw, Owens crushed a towering homerun to leftfield that also barely stayed fair to tie the game. After Southern Maryland loaded the bases, Just came through again, plating pinch-runner Anthony Perry with a single over the drawn in outfield to win the game.