A return home wasn’t the medicine to cure the woes of the Amarillo Sod Poodles this past week at Hodgetown.

Amidst roster changes and hosting the top team in the Texas League in the Frisco RoughRiders, the Sod Poodles weren’t in the greatest position to succeed following a promising series start. After splitting the first two games of the series with Wednesday’s win, the Sod Poodles dropped four straight for their third straight series loss after winning three straight series.

The weekend was particularly rough, as the Soddies (21-30) saw a late rally fall short in Saturday’s 11-6 loss which clinched the series for Frisco (31-19). They looked as if they would be able to salvage something in Sunday afternoon’s series finale, but the RoughRiders scored five runs in the last two innings to leave Hodgetown with a 6-2 win and hand the Sod Poodles a 5-1 series loss.

With the loss, the Soddies equaled their longest losing streak of the season at four games. Three series losses after three series wins bespeaks the transitory nature of minor league baseball as regarding player development.

“It’s how the game goes sometimes,” Sod Poodles manager Javier Colina said. “We had such a rough week all the way around. There’s nothing we can do at this point except move forward. You make adjustments and keep preaching that.”

As tough as the series was most of the week, a happy ending still looked possible Sunday. That was in large part because Tommy Troy and LuJames Groover did their jobs at the plate.

In the first and sixth innings, Troy doubled to left and scored on a hit by Groover. The second time, Groover’s double to left drove home Troy and gave the Sod Poodles a 2-1 lead in the sixth.

Up to that point, the game seemed to be Jose Cabrera’s to lose on the mound. Cabrera pitched six innings, having only given up a run in the second before leaving after six. 

It was one of three solid starting pitching performances for the Sod Poodles against Frisco, but only Dylan Ray’s performance in Wednesday’s 11-2 win was good enough to get in the W column.

“That’s what we need,” Colina said. “The starting pitching is doing such a great job. We’re just trying to figure out with the relievers how to put the best guys in the best spots in all different situations for them to succeed. I can’t complain about my starting rotation.”

Zane Russell relieved Cabrera and threw a scoreless seventh inning, but the last two innings didn’t live up to that. Hayden Durke, who threw a perfect inning in his Soddies debut in Thursday’s 3-1 loss (in relief of left-hander Avery Short, who threw six solid innings in the loss), was far more mortal in his second appearance. With two outs, he gave up a bases-loaded double to Josh Hatcher which gave the RoughRiders a 4-2 lead they never relinquished.

Landon Sims relieved in the ninth, and he gave up two runs on four hits as Frisco put the game out of reach.

Winning Wednesday

Whereas everything seemed to go wrong in the final four games of the series, they all seemed to go right in the one win on Wednesday. After Ray gave up a home run to Aaron Zavala to start the game, it was all Sod Poodles after that.

Ray had his fourth straight quality start to improve his record to 6-3. He went seven innings and gave up only three hits while striking out six and walking only one.

Of all the Sod Poodles, Ray might be the saddest to see May end, as he was 5-0 on the month with a 2.03 ERA and 35 strikeouts in 31 innings.

“Routine’s super important,” said Ray, who’s in his second season in Amarillo. “Being consistent with what you do in the work week and you midweek bullpens is important, but it’s also being relentless in the strike zone. If you do that on a consistent basis, you’ll be successful more often than not.”

Troy also flexed some muscle at the plate in what has been a rarity this season. Wednesday, he got the Sod Poodles on the board with a solo homer off the batter’s eye in left-center in the first to tie it.

Then, with the game tied 2-2 heading into the bottom of the fifth, the Soddies scored six runs to take control of the game for good. Troy capped the inning with a two-run homer to approximately the same place he hit the first one for an 8-2 lead.

That game alone doubled Troy’s homer total for the season, as he now has four in 2025. It was the first time as a professional that Troy had multiple homers in a game, as he hadn’t done that since he played at Stanford.

“For the most part it’s a really long year and I feel like home runs just come in streaks,” Troy said. “You kind of feel something for a bit and ride the wave. You want to do something that applies to all levels and hit line drives and that’s the only thing I focus on.”

Troy has been as consistent as anybody in the lineup, and after Sunday he had four straight multihit games, the longest streak on the team this season. He now has a seven-game hitting streak, the longest current streak on the team.

Hitting two home runs in a game isn’t making him think he’s going to be aiming more for the fences the rest of the season.

“It shouldn’t do anything,” Troy said. “You’ve just got to play the game the right way every single day. I’m trying not to ride the rollercoaster and be the same guy every day but this definitely is a confidence booster.”

Comings and goings

The homestand might have seen the greatest player movement in one week for the Sod Poodles so far this season. There were a total of seven personnel moves made by the Soddies major league parent club Arizona Diamondbacks, including one which brought a familiar face back to town.

The week began when Durke was promoted from Class A Hillsboro. He effectively replaced another reliever, Alec Baker, who was promoted to Class AAA Reno on Sunday.

Friday, infielder Jean Walters was sent to Hillsboro. The next day, outfielder Jack Hurley was transferred to the developmental list.

Also on Friday, outfielder Kevin Graham was sent to Amarillo from Hillsboro. Graham spent all of last season in Amarillo and played 17 games in Reno before returning to Amarillo, where he started the last two games of the series against Frisco in right field, going 2-for-8 and scoring a run.

“This is the minor league system and it is what it is,” Colina said. “You have guys move down and other guys move up. This is not the big leagues. Our job is to develop them  and find the best spot for each player and see what happens.”

Sunday came perhaps the least expected development. Prior to the series finale, catcher Drake Osborn announced his retirement from the game and David Martin was activated in his place.

If nothing else, Osborn went out on a high note. In his final at-bat in the bottom of the eighth Saturday, Osborn singled and drove in a run to cap as four-run inning.