Zamora’s ninth-inning homer lifts Nashville to eighth straight win

Freddy Zamora turned a dead afternoon into Nashville’s cleanest theft of the season, launching a three-run homer in the ninth to cap a five-run rally and send the Sounds past Durham, 6-5, for their eighth straight win.

The Bulls carried a 5-1 lead into the final inning at Durham Bulls Athletic Park, but Nashville never stopped stacking traffic. Brock Wilken opened the ninth with a walk, Eddys Leonard doubled in a run, Greg Jones was hit by a pitch, and then Zamora jumped on the pitch that mattered most. The blast, his first homer of the 2026 season, tied the game and erased what looked like a safe Durham cushion. Luis Lara then delivered the go-ahead RBI single after Jacob Hurtubise drew a walk, completing the comeback in front of 5,968 on a sunny 85-degree morning with the wind blowing out to right field.

That ninth inning was the definition of Triple-A pressure baseball: one baserunner becomes three, one swing becomes the game. Durham had spent most of the day in control, and Nashville had spent most of the day looking for the one inning that would break it open. Instead, the Sounds won it with a mix of patience, contact and one authoritative swing from a shortstop who had not exactly been roaring into the box. Zamora entered the game at .154/.295/.510 in 65 at-bats with one stolen base, which made the homer both a breakthrough and a reminder that his power can change the shape of a game in one pitch.

The comeback mattered because Nashville had already done the early work to keep the game within reach. Thomas Pannone gave the Sounds three scoreless innings, allowing only two hits while striking out two, and Nashville scraped out its first run in the fourth without a clean hit, using a walk, a hit-by-pitch, an error and a wild pitch to get on the board. Durham still pushed ahead enough to make the final inning feel uphill, but the Sounds never lost the leverage of a lineup that keeps forcing bullpen decisions late.

The result pushed Nashville to 26-19 and left Durham at 19-26, but the bigger story is the way the Sounds are winning. Zamora, a 27-year-old from Managua, Nicaragua, drafted by Milwaukee in the second round in 2020 out of the University of Miami, delivered the signature blow. Lara and Leonard kept the rally moving, and Reiss Knehr was credited with the save while John Rooney took the loss. Eight straight wins has a way of turning Triple-A box scores into front-office conversation, and Nashville’s late-game names are starting to look less like depth and more like options.