Gallagher with two home runs on Bundesliga return for Mainz « 1. Baseball Bundesliga

The Mainz Athletics won the catch-up game against the Mannheim Tornados 9:7 on Wednesday evening. Austin Gallagher hit two homers on his return to Major League Baseball and led his A’s to victory with five RBIs. In the end, the Tornados made it exciting again and came back in the ninth inning with four runs. But it wasn’t enough for more.

Austin Gallagher used the second pitch of his at-bat to quickly lead 2-0 with a home run in the first inning. In the fifth period of the game, he provided the preliminary decision when he increased to 5-0 with a 3-run home run. After that, Mannheim also played along and got the first run of the game thanks to Matias Robles’ RBI single.

Mainz followed suit immediately and extended the lead to 9:1 thanks to an error that brought two runs over the plate, an RBI double and a balk. That seemed to be the final decision.

But the tornadoes made it interesting again. Two runs in the eighth and four in the ninth brought them up to 7-9. Luis Diaz’s 3-run home run also doubled as a rally killer. After that, a groundout ended the encounter.

Lennard Stöcklin got the win with five spotless innings. Daniel Gosselin took the loss. Gianni Frolijk contributed three more hits with the Athletics. Kevin Kotowoski scored twice.

The second game of the series will be played in July. Next weekend Mainz travels to Tübingen and the Tornados are at the start in Heidenheim.