On a weekend coinciding with The Masters, it was appropriate that the first series at Hodgetown was all about where you hit the ball and how far it went.
Unfortunately for the Amarillo Sod Poodles, it was the Springfield Cardinals who found most of the right spots this past week.
In a weekend where offense wasn’t in short supply, nobody could afford to give away much of anything, and by the end of Sunday afternoon, Springfield had left town with most of it. Hodgetown had lived up to its reputation as much as Augusta National, but it meant that the visitors had left with five wins in six games.
That’s not to say the Sod Poodles didn’t have something to say before the weekend was over. After four straight losses to open their home season, the Sod Poodles took out some frustrations Saturday night, crushing the Cardinals 15-3 in their best offensive showing of the season.
It was the first home win for Sod Poodles manager Javier Colina in his first full season as the team’s skipper.
“There’s nothing better than winning,” Colina said. “It’s a big relief for the boys because I know they’ve been working so hard. We try to dig a little bit deeper every day to put them in the best position to be successful every night. This is what we’ve been looking for.”
The Soddies couldn’t sustain that momentum Sunday afternoon in the series finale, though. In a prototypical Hodgetown game, the two teams had seven runs in back-to-back innings, but Springfield came up with the last answer to end the series with a 17-12 victory.
In glass-half-full terms, the Sod Poodles (2-7) had to be happy with what happened in every aspect Saturday. They dominated from start to finish in their best outing of the season.
After two scoreless innings, the Sod Poodles broke through with five runs in the third and never looked back. The first five batters of the inning reached base, with Caleb Roberts providing the big blow with a two-run triple.
They sent nine batters to the plate in back-to-back innings, taking an 8-0 lead in the fourth and stretching it to 11-0 by the fifth.
By then, it was only a formality that left-hander Spencer Giesting would get his second win of the season, as he can claim both of Amarillo’s victories in 2025. Giesting went 5 1/3 innings for the win.
“It’s great to start the season with two wins,” said Giesting, who also pitched in Amarillo the last half of last season. “Ultimately having that kind of mindset is going to help you in this ballpark by keeping your team in the game by throwing up zeros. Just constantly throwing here in this league gives you confidence coming back. Understanding what the mound feels like plays a big role.”
Giesting threw five shutout innings before he was pulled in the fifth, by which time the only question was what the margin of victory would be. The Sod Poodles pounded out 16 hits, led by Tommy Troy, who went 4-for-5, scored three runs and drove in two.
Troy, the No. 8 prospect in the Sod Poodles parent club Arizona Diamondbacks, came back after a rough first game to have a big series. Troy hit in each of the final five games at Hodgetown, during which time he was 11-for-19 with 10 runs scored.
“He’s been seeing the ball well and he has a good approach at the plate,” Colina said of Troy. “Today is over and we have to be ready for the next day. That’s the way it is and when you’re on a hitting streak you have to enjoy it. He’s a hard worker and he’s been fun to watch.”
Sunday, the Soddies sent 11 batters to the plate in the bottom of the third to score seven runs and take an 8-6 lead. Jeremiah Boyd had a two-run double and Andy Weber capped the inning with a three-run double.
That lead didn’t last, as Springfield knocked out Soddies starter Roman Angelo in the fourth, with R.J. Yeager’s two-run home run (his second of the game) giving the Cardinals the lead for good. Later in the inning, Ramon Mendoza hit a two-run homer off Soddies reliever Landon Sims and by the time it was over, Springfield was up 13-8 and never trailed again.
They know the sweet spots
It helps at a park like Hodgetown for hitters to know where to hit the ball in the air and where it will go.
That made it no surprise that some Sod Poodles who had a cup of coffee in Amarillo last season experienced the earlest success at the plate to begin the season. It’s literally a matter of knowing which way the wind blows.
Catcher Christian Cerda, who spent the final month of 2024 at Amarillo, appropriately gave the Soddies their first run at Hodgetown of 2025 when he hit an impressive solo homer to tie the Cardinals at 1-1 in Tuesday’s season opener.
“I know this is a short field and the balls travel a lot,” said Cerda, who didn’t homer in his few opportunities at Hodgetown last season. “I just go in there to have a great (at-bat). I got the feel for this from last year but I just keep working hard since I got here and everything comes out well.”
Cerda doesn’t think about power much when it comes to hitting at Hodgetown, and just welcomes a dinger when it comes.
“I think I’ve got decent power when I hit it on the barrel but mostly I’m just a catcher,” Cerda said. “I’m just looking for those base hits and walks to get on base.”
Weber got a taste of Hodgetown last season as it was one of three stops he made for the Diamondbacks organization. Unlike Cerda, Weber is a left-handed hitter, which doesn’t necessarily translate as well to Hodgetown’s prevailing winds to left field.
Nonetheless, Weber hit an impressive two-run homer just to the left of the centerfield batter’s eye, showing what can happen when anybody gets a good swing.
“I think this is a park where you don’t necessarily have to muscle up on a ball,” Weber said. “If you have a good approach and find a barrel you will get rewarded for it on a night when the wind is blowing out.”
Having coached with the Sod Poodles in 2022 and ’23, Colina expects big innings sometimes and never sees deficits as insurmountable.
“We’re down by five or six in a ball game and we know we’re not out of it,” Colina said. “We always want to manage the game to win. It’s the Texas League and everybody knows how this field plays when the wind is blowing out.”
Not so Roman holiday
If there was somebody who learned the hard way how Hodgetown treats pitchers, it was Angelo. His first two Double-A starts were in Hodgetown to begin and end the week and he might be happy to be on the road to Frisco starting Tuesday.
In 7 1/3 innings in absorbing two losses, Angelo gave up seven homers. Results could have been different if he’d avoided the long ball.
Cerda caught Angelo in the first game, and empathizes with his struggles pitching in the hitter haven.
“It was his first time in Double-A and we didn’t have a lot of our pitches there,” Cerda said. “(Angelo) is a pretty decent pitcher and he’s going to get the feel of this and have a good year. Not every day the pitchers bring the same stuff. You’ve just got to worry about what they have that day and grind through the day.”