After years of kicking around thea minor pros, you might think players get jaded. But guess again.
Victoria Seals third baseman Brian Rios was on the phone to his wife in California, telling her the news in the intermission between games, after hitting the walk-off homer to give the Seals a 4-2 victory over the Orange County Flyers in the first game of a Golden Baseball League doubleheader last night at Royal Athletic Park.
It was the second walk-off victory and third come-from-behind win of the young season for a Seals team that is edging toward having that 'Cardiac' moniker attached to it.
"We're a team that keeps battling," said Rios.
"We just never give up."
The second game of the twinbill was in progress at press time between the Seals (5-2) and Flyers (4-2).
Victoria and Orange County close out their set with a matinee today at 1:30 p.m. at RAP. Scheduled to start on the mound for the Flyers is two-time World Series champion and 2002 NL all-star Byung-Hyun Kim, a side-slinger who played for the Diamondbacks, Red Sox, Rockies and Marlins in a major league career from 1999 to 2007 and also for Korea in the World Baseball Classic.
The Seals then will finally see some sun but will have to go to Arizona to get it in a six-game road swing through Tucson and Yuma before returning to RAP June 8 to play the defending GBL champion Calgary Vipers.
The Vipers, however, would settle for this blustery and cool Victoria spring weather after again being snowed out yesterday in their series against, of all teams, Maui.
But the weather was familiar enough for Victoria's first-game starter Aaron Trolia, a former Seattle Mariners bat boy who was drafted by his hometown M's in 2004. Trolia did a fine job on the kind of night he knows well, having grown up in the Emerald City, striking out 10 and giving up three hits through six innings. The only real blemish on his outing was the solo home run he gave up to Orange County slugger Ben Johnson, who played three seasons in the majors with the Padres and Mets.
Johnson's soaring drive was no mere 317-foot poke over left field on to Pembroke Street. It went 400 feet straight over the heart of the outfield in dead centre. It was Johnson's fourth home run of the season and tied the game 1-1 in the sixth inning after a two-out Colin Moro home run in the fifth inning had given Victoria a 1-0 lead in the tightly-pitched affair.
Steve Boggs' RBI single gave Orange County a 2-1 lead in the top of the seventh inning, which is the final inning in doubleheaders throughout minor-pro baseball.
The Seals were down to their last gasp with two out in the bottom of the seventh when first-baseman Terrence McClain came through with an RBI single to tie it before Rios's dramatic walk-off homer clinched the deal.
"It was a fastball in and I was just trying to put it in play," said Rios, a former Detroit prospect who played Triple-A in the Tigers chain.
"It went out of the park and that helped pick everyone up . . . we're really keeping together as a team now after what happened," added Rios, alluding to field manager Bret Boone's sudden resignation Thursday for personal reasons.
And that's worth phoning home about.
