With two on and two out, Jean Carlos Encarnacion nearly hit his second walkoff homer of the year but instead flew out to the deepest part of Arthur W. Perdue Stadium as Adam Hall and his Delmarva Shorebirds teammates fell 7 - 6 to the Greensboro Grasshoppers in 10 innings.
The loss dealt the Shorebirds (25-6) their first series loss of the season and moved the Grasshoppers (22-11) into a tie for second, four games back of first-place Delmarva in the SAL Northern Division.
With the score knotted at 6-6 in the top of the 10th, Greensboro struck for three runs. The inning began with Michael Gretler stationed at second base and he advanced to third after Fabricio Macias reached on an error. Macias then stole second, setting up Jonah Davis to bloop a single over the drawn-in infield and into left, scoring Macias and Gretler to put Greensboro ahead 6-4. Davis then stole second himself and came around to score on a Mason Martin RBI single, making it a 7-4 game.
Just like they have the entire season, the Shorebirds did not go down without a fight. Robbie Thorburn began the bottom of the 10th as the free runner at second and moved to third on Hall's infield single. A wild pitch pushed Thorburn across to make it 7-5 Greensboro and moved Hall to second. Doran Turchin then walked, putting the tying run on base. Following back-to-back strikeouts, pinch-hitter Daniel Fajardo fouled off a pair of two-strike pitches and singled to right, scoring Hall to cut it to 7-6 and advancing Turchin to third. Encarnacion then stepped to the plate and drilled a 3-2 pitch to center, but the ball died in the air and Davis hauled it in on the warning track to end the game.
With the Grasshoppers ahead 4-3, Hall answered with a solo home run to begin the bottom of the eighth to tie the game at 4-4.
Hall broke an 0-for-14 slump with his second homer of the season and finished the game 2-for-5 with two runs scored.
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