Round Rock steals extra-inning win over El Paso on Castillo's home steal

Round Rock turned a blown early lead into a series-reset win Thursday night, and it did it with the kind of nerve that travels. The Express beat El Paso 5-4 in 10 innings at Southwest University Park, finishing off a game that swung hard, settled late, and then flipped on one aggressive baserunning move in the top of the 10th.

The E-Train opened fast with a 2-0 lead in the first. Diego Castillo drove in the first run with an RBI single, and Aaron Zavala followed with an RBI double. El Paso answered right away when Samad Taylor led off the bottom of the inning with a single and later scored on Jase Bowen’s groundout, keeping the Chihuahuas from letting the night get away early.

Round Rock looked like it had taken control again in the fourth. Zavala doubled once more, Cooper Johnson singled him home, and a wild pitch brought Johnson across for a 4-1 lead. But El Paso kept grinding. A wild pitch helped start the comeback, Marcos Castañon added an RBI single, and Pablo Reyes tied it with a sacrifice fly. By the time the inning ended, a three-run cushion was gone and the game had become a test of who would handle the pressure better from there.

That question ran through three scoreless innings and into extras. In the 10th, Castillo began on second, Gilberto Celestino reached on a hit, and with Zavala at the plate, Celestino’s movement helped open the door for Castillo to steal home for the go-ahead run. It was the kind of finish that says more about a club’s edge than its box score. Round Rock was already 3-2 in extra-inning games, and it looked comfortable playing in that space again.

Emiliano Teodo made the ending stand up by retiring the side in order in the bottom of the 10th for the win, while David Morgan took the loss for El Paso. David Davalillo gave Round Rock enough to work with in the start, allowing five hits, two earned runs and five walks over five innings. Cam Cauley also kept applying pressure on the bases with two stolen bases, part of a season-long push that has put him among the Pacific Coast League’s steal leaders.

Samad Taylor was the hardest out in the El Paso lineup, finishing 4-for-6 with a season-high in hits, but the Chihuahuas left runners at third base in both the ninth and 10th innings. That missed chance stung in a game that lasted 3:09 before Teodo shut the door.

Round Rock won for the second time in the first three games of the series after El Paso had taken the opener 10-7 on May 20. For a club trying to climb back above water, this was the more revealing result: not the lead, but the answer after losing it.