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On Thursday night, the Glendale Desert Dogs hosted the Surprise Saguaros at Camelback Ranch in their third game of the Arizona Fall League season.
Desert Dogs 5, Saguaros 4
Harrison Bader (LF): 1-4, HR, RBI, R
Osvaldo Abreu’s two-run double in the bottom of the ninth inning lifted the Desert Dogs to a 5-4 walk-off victory over the Saguaros on Thursday night at Camelback Ranch in Glendale, Arizona.
Abreu, a shortstop at the High-A level of the Nationals’ farm system who had 23 doubles and stole eighteen bases through 126 games in 2016, drove in three of Glendale’s five runs on Thursday, including the game-tying and -winning runs in the final regulated frame off Saguaros hurler Montana DuRapu of the Pirates’ organization. DuRapau held batters to a .229 batting mark and worked a 3.65 ERA in 49 1/3 innings at the Double-A rung of the organizational ladder.
After Desert Dogs starter Francis Martes was tagged for three early runs, Cardinals prospect Harrison Bader opened the scoring for Glendale with a home run, the first and ultimately only long ball for either club. Bader smashed nineteen homers and robbed eleven bags across the Double-A and Triple-A levels this year.
Following Bader’s blast in the second, the run column on the scoreboard remained unaltered until the bottom of the seventh, when the Desert Dogs tied the game for the first time before walking it off in the ninth.
Outside of Bader, no other Cardinal appeared in Thursday’s contest, perhaps due to the fact that the other two Cardinals position players -- Carson Kelly and Paul DeJong -- went a combined 0-for-9 on Wednesday.
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On Friday, the Desert Dogs will travel to Scottsdale for a date with the Scorpions starting at 7:35 p.m. CT. As of Friday morning, the probable starting pitchers for either side have to yet be announced. Nonetheless, look for one of the Cardinals’ three relief pitchers -- Rowan Wick, Ryan Sherriff, and Corey Littrell -- to take the mound at one point and Kelly and DeJong to start or make a pinch-hit appearance.