Kala’i Rosario wasted no time giving St. Paul life, but Omaha had the last word in a 3-2, 10-inning Saints loss Friday night.
Rosario opened the game with a two-run burst of his own kind of thunder, launching his eighth homer of the season and his fifth in the last five games to put the Saints up 1-0 just two batters into the night. After that, though, the offense went quiet and the game turned into a pitching fight.
Aaron Rozek gave St. Paul exactly the kind of outing it needed. The left-hander worked six scoreless innings, allowing four hits and three walks while striking out three, and he trimmed his ERA from 4.10 to 3.84 before handing a one-run lead to Matt Bowman in the seventh.
Omaha broke through against Bowman, scoring two earned runs to flip the game and grab a 2-1 advantage.
St. Paul answered to tie it back up at 2-2 when Cody Morissette singled in Matt Wallner, delivering what ended up being the Saints’ final run of the night.
Neither side scored again through the ninth, and the Saints went quietly in the top of the 10th. Omaha then won it when its right fielder drove in Abraham Toro with a sacrifice fly off Julian Merryweather, ending it in walk-off fashion.
The Saints finished with nine hits. Morissette, Hendry Mendez and Noah Cardenas each had two hits, while Rosario’s first-inning homer was the only ball that left the park. Omaha collected eight hits.
St. Paul fell to 76-59, and the teams will meet again in the fifth game of their six-game series Saturday at 6:05 p.m. The Saints will send Jack Anderson (5-4, 4.29) to face Omaha’s Vince Velasquez (2-2, 7.04).
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