By Cade Haak
JOPLIN, Missouri (July 31, 2024) – Texarkana’s commanding offensive presence helped lead the team to a victory in just seven innings due to the league’s run rule.
Texarkana took the lead in the second inning and did not look back through the next five innings. Their first two runs were scored on a throwing error across the diamond as the third baseman made an errant throw.
Joplin cut the Rhinos lead by one in the following inning when they scored a single run, but the Rhinos immediately widened the margin back to two runs in the third when Neil Jansen hit a solo home run into left field.
One inning later, in the top of the fourth inning, Texarkana built on their total with two more runs. Sebastian Huerta drew a walk to start the inning, then Yuto Mimura hit a long ball over the right field wall for two runs.
Joplin kept the deficit at just two runs after they matched the Rhinos scoring output in the bottom of the inning. Neither team was able to score in the fifth inning after both found success in the fourth.
In the sixth inning, the Rhinos blew the doors off the game with one of their most skillful offensive displays of the year. The show that was the sixth inning began with pitching struggles for the Outlaws, loading the bases with no outs. With the bases loaded, Alex DeLeon came up to the plate and aired a ball out and over the left-centerfield fence for a grand slam to add four runs. Aiden Otano then walked, and Sebastian Huerta followed thereafter with a single. Yuto Mimura then made his walk to the plate and drilled a triple into a gap in the outfield to score both runs, giving him his third and fourth RBI of the game. Mimura scored from third on a fielder’s choice that also allowed Niko Platre to reach first safely. Then, the final two runs of the nine-run inning came from a home run over the left fielder from the bat of Rylan Evans, his fourth home run of the year.
Joplin scored two runs in the bottom of the sixth to keep themselves from being run-ruled, but they could only stave off the inevitable loss for so long. In the seventh inning, the Rhinos scored three runs, and this was enough to give them the ten-run lead they needed to end the game early. Huerta scored the first run when he was driven in by KJ Battles on a single to left field. Rylan Evans hit a double down the left field line later in the inning to bring home two more of his teammates and push Texarkana’s lead to 12.
The winning pitcher for the Rhinos was Chance Reed, who appeared on the mound as a reliever in the third inning and went on to pitch four innings and help his team earn the win over Joplin, who has proven to be one of the toughest opponents in the league.
