20-year-old's first High-A home run wins it for the Ironbirds
*Cover Photo Credit: Grant DeVivo
Lately, it has been a great day to be an Aberdeen Ironbird and, well, not so good of a day to be a Brookyln Cyclone.
After blowing out the Cyclones 9-2 on Tuesday night, the Ironbirds kept addng salt to the wound with a 3-1 walk-off win in last night's ballgame.
The hero of that game was 20-year-old infielder Angel Tejada.
A native of the Dominican Republic, Tejada had just recently been promoted to the Ironbirds after being a .241 hitter for Low-A Delmarva with a .624 OPS. His first week with Aberdeen saw him go 4-for-26 (.160) without an RBI and just a double to show for. He broke out as the hero in last night's game, going 2-for-4 with the dramatic 9th inning heroic hit.
The game was tied 1-1 entering the bottom of the 9th, and both offenses had been fairly quiet with the bats. Brooklyn entered the inning with just 4 hits, while Aberdeen had just 3. Brookyl assigned Henry Henry the inning on the mound. Reed Trimble started things off with a walk, then proceeded to steal second base as Douglas Hodo III took strike three. Carter Young advanced Trimble to third base with a sacrafice fly.
Then, Tejada stepped into the batter's box.
With a 1-1 count, he swung at an offspeed changeup from Henry and launched it to deep left field as Trimble walked his way to home plate and the Brookyln outfield just stared in shock as the ball sailed right over their own clubhouse.
Game over.
Tejada won the game with a walk-off 2-RBI home run, his first home run and RBIs at High-A. The Ironbirds secured the first two games of the 6-game set with the Cyclones. This improves their win streak to four in a row, and they are now 5-3 in their last 8 games. As rough of a first week as Tejada had in High-A, this definitely had to have felt good for the powerful infielder. Perhaps this is where the youngster feels good, finds his groove, and becomes a potent threat in Aberdeen's recently revamped and reshaped lineup.
For now, Tejada can celebrate helping Aberdeen start off right in the ealry portion of their homestand against the Cyclones.
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