The Toronto Maple Leafs and the Guelph Royals look poised to stage an epic battle in their Intercounty Baseball league playoff series.
Their best-of-seven opening round series is down to a best-of-three after the Leafs scored five runs in the eighth inning to rally past the Royals 8-7 Saturday afternoon in Guelph, tying the series at 2-2. Game 5 is at Dominico Field at Christie Pits Sunday at 2 p.m., with Game 6 is Guelph Monday afternoon.
Jordan Castaldo hit a three-run homer to highlight the big eighth inning and the Leafs hung on for the win, one day after losing a 12-11 10 inning thriller to the Royals in Toronto.
“The series is back to even and we have home field advantage, so that is all you can ask for right now,” Leaf owner Jack Dominico said. “We were missing a few key players today so it was huge to come back the way we did.”
The Leafs rallied from a 6-2 deficit despite being without regular outfielders Kern Watts and Raul Borjas and picked up a crucial win, especially since Toronto now again has home field advantage in what has been a hard hitting series.
Castaldo wound up with four RBI and two hits to pace Toronto’s 10-hit attack. Kyle Morton and Kyle Degrace both added a hit, an RBI and two runs scored for the Leafs, who also got a tremendous performance from their bullpen in the win.
Starter Jon Lockwood allowed six runs – three earned - on six hits over six innings, striking out five and walking one.Reliever Ryan Mashinter got the win, allowing one run and one hit in one inning, before Cody Powell pitched two shutout innings for the save, allowing just one hit with one strikeout.
“The bullpen really bailed us out today,” Dominico added.
Starter Mel Melehes was sharp over six innings, allowing two runs on four hits with three strikeouts and one walk. But reliever Brett Lawson was far from sharp.
Lawson took the loss, allowing five runs – just two earned – on four hits with two strikeouts over 2 1/3 innings.
Frankie Hare homered and had two hits and two RBI while Brad Cochrane also homered for Guelph. Sean Reilly added a pair of hits and an RBI for the losers.
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