Columbus hits four homers, rallies past Iowa Cubs 9-4

Columbus did its damage one swing at a time and then all at once, erasing Iowa’s 4-0 lead with four home runs in a 9-4 Clippers win Wednesday night at Huntington Park. What had looked like a clean night for the Iowa Cubs after the second inning quickly turned into a test of upper-level pitching depth, as the middle innings exposed how little margin the staff had once the ball started leaving the yard.

Iowa opened the game exactly the way it wanted. Ben Cowles and Casey Opitz each drove in a run with RBI singles in the second inning, and Justin Dean added an RBI double as the I-Cubs jumped ahead 3-0. Opitz pushed the lead to 4-0 in the fourth with a safety-squeeze RBI, giving Iowa a cushion that should have been enough to control the night. Instead, Columbus kept the game alive with power.

Stuart Fairchild trimmed the lead with a two-run homer in the fourth, Milan Tolentino later went deep twice, and the Clippers seized the game in the sixth with the swing that mattered most. Tolentino’s three-run blast flipped a 4-3 Iowa advantage into a 7-4 Columbus lead, turning a tight game into a sudden rout. Kahlil Watson added the fourth homer for Columbus in the seventh, a solo shot that stretched the margin to 9-4 and ended any realistic comeback chance.

The final line was stark: Iowa finished with four runs on eight hits, but the offense never matched Columbus once the Clippers found the long ball. Logan Allen was hit for four runs over 4.0 innings and struck out seven, while Colin Holderman handled the middle of the game with 2.0 scoreless innings to earn the win. The result left Iowa at 9-7 and Columbus at 9-8 in the middle of a six-game series, with Thursday’s rematch set for 11:05 a.m. CT. For the Cubs, the question hanging over this one is whether it was just a bad night or a sign that the next emergency arm in Des Moines may not be ready when Chicago needs one.