Saints' homers not enough, Indians rally past St. Paul 4-3

The Saints did what they do best and still lost anyway. St. Paul homered twice, built a 3-1 lead, then watched Indianapolis rip the game away with a three-run seventh in a 4-3 Indians victory Friday night at Victory Field.

For a lineup built around the long ball, this was a brutal reminder that power alone does not finish games. Alex Jackson opened the scoring with a solo homer to right in the fifth, tying it 1-1, and Gabby Gonzalez put St. Paul ahead with another solo blast in the sixth. Gonzalez finished 2-for-4 with a homer, an RBI and a run scored, while Emmanuel Rodriguez, Ryan Kreidler and Kyler Fedko helped push the Saints into the lead before the inning closed. St. Paul had already leaned heavily on the home run in this series, and that identity showed again here, with all three runs coming on homers and none arriving through sustained pressure.

Then the game flipped in a hurry. Mitch Jebb drew a walk to start the Indianapolis rally, Tyler Callihan smashed a two-run homer, and Davis Wendzel followed with a go-ahead solo shot in the seventh to make it 4-3. The Saints never found another lane back in, and Indianapolis pitchers set down the final 10 St. Paul hitters to end it. What St. Paul lacked was the connective tissue that wins close games: one single after the walk, one productive at-bat after the homer, one inning where the offense keeps forcing the issue instead of waiting for the next swing.

Thomas Harrington set the tone for Indianapolis with a season-high 5.0 innings and seven strikeouts, and the bullpen took it from there. Brandon Neeck, Chris Devenski and Michael Darrell-Hicks worked the last 3.0 innings without allowing a hit, a clean finish that made the Indians’ late burst stand up.

The loss dropped St. Paul to 9-15 and moved Indianapolis to 10-15, while also giving the Indians their first series victory of the 2026 season. It came before 5,181 at Victory Field, where St. Paul had already spent much of this trip trying to rewrite a miserable run, after going 2-19 in Indianapolis over the previous two seasons combined. Instead, the Saints left another one on the table, with enough power to win and not enough sequencing to survive.