ASHEVILLE, N.C. — There are games that defy explanation. Sunday afternoon at HomeTrust Park was one of them.
Anthony Huezo launched a two-run home run into a picturesque pale blue sky in the bottom of the tenth inning to complete a twelve-run comeback and give the Asheville Tourists a 16-14 win over the Rome Emperors in one of the most unbelievable games in recent HomeTrust Park memory. His teammates mobbed him at the plate. The water bucket came out. Manager Nate Shaver raced over and wrapped his young star in a bear hug. The crowd lost its mind.
It capped a comeback that started with the Tourists trailing 12-3 in the seventh inning and seemed utterly impossible.
Dixon Williams had done everything in his power to make sure it stayed that way. One day after driving in ten runs in a 19-6 Rome blowout, Williams homered three more times Sunday, in the first, fifth, and seventh innings, to finish an almost incomprehensible 24-hour stretch. In his last two games combined he went 8-for-11 with five home runs, 16 RBIs, and 24 total bases. Numbers that belong in a video game, not a real professional box score.
Williams and Alex Lodise homered back to back in the first inning to put Rome up 3-0 before Asheville had recorded two outs. The Tourists chipped back on a Freuddy Batista two-run double in the second, but Batista was hurt stealing third on the play and was helped off the field and carted to the clubhouse. A Cade Doughty ground out made it 4-2, and a Zach Daudet double cut it to 4-3 in the fourth before Williams struck again with a three-run homer in the fifth. 7-3 Rome.
The seventh inning was when things looked truly hopeless. Williams homered again to make it 9-3. Then Dallas Macias launched a three-run shot to push it to 12-3. Nine runs, and the series finale felt like a foregone conclusion.
Then the Tourists came to back bat.
DJ Newman homered to right to start the comeback. Hector Salas singled to score one more. Kyle Walker tripled, Williams diving in left field and watching it skip past him, to score Salas. Huezo doubled to score Walker. In the span of one inning, Asheville had scored five runs and cut it to 12-8.
Colby Langford then delivered one of the quieter heroic moments of the game in the top of the eighth. He loaded the bases with nobody out and got a swinging bunt back to the mound for a force at the plate, then induced a 6-2-3 double play to end the inning without allowing a run. The crowd, already buzzing from the seventh inning rally, grew even louder.
The eighth inning brought more. A Doughty fielding error and an Essenburg throwing error combined to score Newman and put Salas on third. Walker singled to score Salas. 12-10. The comeback was real.
The ninth inning made it official. Newman doubled to left to score Huezo and Monistere and tie the game at twelve. HomeTrust Park was shaking.
Rome broke the tie in the tenth on a Doughty home run to make it 14-12. But the Tourists answered again. Walker hit a sacrifice fly to score Vasquez. Moss singled to score Salas. Tied at fourteen. Then Huezo stepped in and drove the first pitch he saw into the pale blue right field sky. Gone. The Tourists won 16-14.
Huezo finished 3-for-4 with three RBIs and four runs scored. Newman went 4-for-5 with two home runs and four RBIs. Walker went 2-for-5 with three RBIs including the crucial triple and the go-ahead sacrifice fly. Salas went 3-for-5 with two runs scored and an RBI.
The series ends tied at three games apiece. Asheville opens a six-game homestand against the Brooklyn Cyclones on Tuesday night at HomeTrust Park. Nick Potter gets the start for the Tourists. First pitch is set for 6:35 p.m.