Toronto Comes Up Short in Wild 10-Inning Loss to London

By Noam Streiffer 

The Toronto Maple Leafs lost a heartbreaker to the London Majors on Sunday, with the final score being 16-15.

Ayami Sato took the mound for the Leafs in her second start of the season but was rocked for seven runs and allowed four home runs in just two innings pitched.

On the offensive side of the ball, the Leafs were only able to muster one run in the first three innings before exploding for seven runs in the bottom of the fourth.

It was the number nine hitter, Spenser Ross, who was electric and helped cap off a big inning for the Leafs. Ross led things off with a double off the wall, eventually coming around to score on a Ryan Dos Santos three-run home run.

Following a wild pitch and an RBI double from Jeffrey Mejia, Ross came up for the second time in the inning and launched a nearly identical two-run double to tie the game at 8–8.

The tie was short-lived as the Majors responded with a pair of solo home runs from Byron Reichstein and Champ Garner in the top of the fifth, putting London back on top 10–8.

The Leafs answered back in the bottom half of the fifth, scoring one on an RBI single from Marcus Knecht to cut the deficit to one.

However, London continued to pour it on. Kaiden Cardoso hit a solo home run in the top of the sixth, followed by another run scoring on a wild pitch in the top of the seventh to give the Majors a three-run cushion.

The Leafs weren’t done yet. Jordan Castaldo tied things up with a dramatic three-run home run in the bottom of the eighth. Two shutdown innings from Jeremy Newton and Sebastian Rodriguez in the eighth and ninth sent the game to extras.

The Majors came out swinging in the top of the 10th, scoring four runs on four base hits and capitalizing on three defensive errors by the Leafs.

Toronto mounted a valiant comeback effort in the bottom half. Rando Moreno blasted a three-run home run to cut the lead to 16–15. Unfortunately, that was all the Leafs had left in the tank, falling just short and dropping to 1–2 on the young season.

Despite the loss, there were plenty of positives to take away—especially the fight shown by the Leafs throughout the game.  Spenser Ross had this to say about his new teammates postgame: "It's a resilient group. Everyone contributes, everyone knows how to play the game… There's no quit."

Coming up next the Leafs head to Brantford to take on the Red Sox. First pitch on Friday, May 23rd, at 8:00 PM.