Gwinnett edges Jacksonville in 10 innings on wild pitch, 5-4

Jacksonville hit the loudest balls, but Gwinnett landed the cleaner final blows. The Stripers outlasted the Jumbo Shrimp 5-4 on Friday night at VyStar Ballpark, using a wild pitch in the 10th inning and Rolddy Munoz’s calm finish to turn a game built on home runs into a result that mattered in the standings and in Atlanta’s depth picture.

Jacksonville opened with power from Agustín Ramírez and Deyvison De Los Santos. Ramírez put the Jumbo Shrimp ahead 1-0 with a solo homer in the second inning, then De Los Santos made it 3-1 with a two-run blast in the third. Gwinnett answered with contact and timing rather than another swing for the fences, as Brett Wisely delivered an RBI single and Aaron Schunk followed with a two-out, two-run double in the sixth to flip the game to 4-3.

The Stripers could not quite finish it in regulation. Andrew Pintar tied the score 4-4 with an RBI infield single in the eighth, sending the game to extra innings and setting up the decisive sequence that separated a good night from a wasted one. Luke Williams started the 10th on third base and scored the winning run when a pitch got away, then Munoz handled the bottom half with no panic at all.

Munoz stranded Matthew Etzel at third base, struck out Rece Hinds and Johnny Olmstead, and closed out Gwinnett’s 5-4 win for his fourth save. He lowered his ERA to 1.00 and continued to pitch like the Stripers’ most reliable late-inning answer, while Hayden Harris gave Gwinnett a critical bridge with 2.0 scoreless, one-hit innings and four strikeouts. Schunk and Wisely did the damage at the plate, but Harris and Munoz won the leverage innings.

The victory improved Gwinnett to 35-32 and cut Jacksonville’s edge to 36-31. It also gave the Stripers a 3-1 lead in the six-game set after Jacksonville’s 14-2 rout on June 10 and Gwinnett’s 14-5 rebound on June 11. Gwinnett improved to 5-2 in extra-inning games and 8-7 in last-at-bat decisions, and the first one-run win since May 1 at Charlotte underscored how often this level comes down to one pitch, one swing, or one calm finish.

That late execution carried added weight with catcher Drake Baldwin set to join Gwinnett on a rehab assignment the next day, after the Atlanta Braves had placed him on the 10-day injured list with a strained right oblique on May 19. In a season of constant roster churn, Gwinnett showed it could still steal a game it had no business losing.