Express blow ninth-inning lead, Bulls rally for walk-off win

Josh Stephan delivered the best start of his Round Rock career and still left Durham Bulls Athletic Park with nothing to show for it. The right-hander struck out 11 in 6.0 innings, did not issue a walk and was perfect through three frames, yet the Express blew a two-run lead in the ninth and fell 7-6 to the Bulls on May 5 before 3,623 fans.

Stephan was sharp from the opening pitch at 6:47 p.m., piling up eight strikeouts through four innings while limiting Durham to three earned runs on six hits. His lone blemishes came after the Bulls had already been kept in check for most of the night. Brody Hopkins gave Durham a strong counterpunch, striking out six and holding Round Rock scoreless through five innings, and the Bulls seized control in the middle innings when Blake Sabol singled in a run and Brock Jones launched his third homer of the season in the fifth. Dom Keegan then added RBI singles in the sixth and eighth to build a 4-1 lead.

That margin looked safe until Round Rock’s ninth-inning rally turned the game on its head. Diego Castillo and Richie Martin opened the frame with singles, Gilberto Celestino delivered a sacrifice fly, Aaron Zavala doubled and Nick Pratto lined a two-run single up the middle to tie it 4-4. Cam Cauley followed with another hit, and after a pitching change, Trevor Hauver reached on a fielding error that pushed two more runs across and briefly put the Express in front 6-4.

The lead vanished almost immediately. Gavin Lux singled home a run in the bottom of the ninth, back-to-back walks forced in the tying score, and Keegan capped his three-RBI night with a walk-off single for Durham’s third run of the inning. The official line credited the win to C. Hill and the loss to Ryan Acker, while Round Rock was left with a fifth straight defeat, seven losses in its last eight games and a season-high eight games below .500.

For Stephan, the performance still landed in rare company. Since Round Rock became a Triple-A club in 2005, only 13 pitchers have struck out at least 11 in a game, and only three have done it without a walk, with Stephan joining Phil Irwin and Fernando Nieve. He also became the only Triple-A pitcher in 2026 to reach that strikeout-and-command combination, a dominant line that was buried by one chaotic ninth inning and one devastating finish.