Syracuse Mets rally with ninth-inning homers, walk off Norfolk in 10th
Down to their final out, Syracuse homered twice in the ninth and got Cristian Pache’s 10th-inning single for a 6-5 win over Norfolk.
Syracuse looked headed for a loss until Jihwan Bae and Nick Morabito changed the night with two outs in the ninth, and Cristian Pache finished it in the 10th as the Mets beat the Norfolk Tides 6-5 at NBT Bank Stadium. The comeback turned a two-run deficit into Syracuse’s fifth walk-off win of the season and gave the club a result that mattered as much for momentum as for the standings.
Norfolk struck first in the second inning, taking a 2-0 lead on Luis Vázquez’s RBI single and a wild pitch that scored Ryan Noda. Syracuse answered in the third when Hayden Senger launched a solo homer, then tied it in the fourth on Pache’s ground-rule double after Andy Ibáñez and Yonny Hernández helped set the table. The game swung back Norfolk’s way in the sixth when José Barrero hit a two-run homer to make it 4-2.
Syracuse never stopped answering. Morabito cut the deficit to one with a solo homer in the seventh, and even after Norfolk added an insurance run in the ninth, the Mets had one more surge left. Silas Ardoin scored on a balk by Jefry Yan to push the Tides ahead 5-3, but Bae followed with the game-tying blast and Morabito came right behind him with his second homer of the night to even the score and send the crowd at NBT Bank Stadium into a frenzy.
The extra inning belonged to the Syracuse bullpen and the bottom of the order. Daniel Duarte worked around a single and a stolen base to keep Norfolk off the board in the 10th, stranding runners at second and third. Ryan Clifford started the inning at second as the automatic runner, and after he advanced, Pache lined the winning RBI single to center to complete a night in which he drove in two runs.
Morabito finished with two home runs and two RBIs, while Pache’s three-hit, two-RBI performance gave Syracuse the production it needed at the end. After beating Norfolk 6-3 on Tuesday behind a four-run eighth and Xzavion Curry’s seven-inning start, then dropping a 6-5 game Wednesday in which Norfolk hit four homers, Syracuse split the first two games of the set by flipping the script in the ninth and 10th. For a Triple-A club trying to stay relevant in the International League first-half race, nights like this are the ones that get noticed, especially when Bae, Morabito and Pache are the names driving the rally.
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