Soddies by Morning: Troy Tanks Two Homers and Ray Finishes a Phenomenal May

Amarillo has an offensive explosion and Ray's fifth straight quality start in five tries were huge parts in a border line perfect night at Hodgetown.

As great as the night was It didn’t start out picture perfect for Amarillo. The Texas League leader in OBP and Frisco leadoff hitter Aaron Zavala who has been a pleasant surprise for Frisco this year belted a leadoff home run against Amarillo’s Dylan Ray to give the Roughriders the early lead.

Tommy Troy did what Tommy Troy does, but this time with a little pop. Troy used his elite plate discipline and worked the count into his favor and attacked, blasting his first home run since April 23rd to dead center to respond and tie the game at one. Amarillo would manage just two runs in the first inning, but they forced a short night by Kohl Drake who had diced up Amarillo in Frisco just a month prior. After 35 pitches and in the middle of a count to Christian Cerda, Roughriders manager Carlos Cardoza went to the pen after Drake only recorded just two outs on two hits including Troy’s blast, two walks and two strikeouts. “I feel like those days really set you up for the whole week. 
Especially if you think about how we got the starter out in the first inning. It helps us win the game today, but it helps us the rest of the week too, because they had to throw a lot more bullpen arms today. I'd say today is almost like two wins.” Troy said postgame. The Frisco bullpen would throw 147 combined pitches on the night between four of their arms in the final 7.1 innings, but wouldn’t quite be able to take advantage of it until a monster fifth inning.

Dylan Ray [Photo Credit: Parker Liles for Sideline Sports]

What a May for Dylan Ray. The Amarillo right hander did it again on Wednesday night, tossing seven strong frames in just 85 pitches, on three hits, two walks, and six swinging strikeouts. “It was just limiting base runners, getting ahead in the count. You have to be relentless in the strike zone here. I gave up two homers and it could have been a lot worse, if I’m walking guys or giving up other hits.” Ray said of the key to his performance tonight, “When guys are on base, they score with the homers and it puts you in a bad spot, but when you're packing the zone and getting ahead of guys it doesn't give them much room, so that's where the success begins.” That was Ray’s fifth straight quality start in an elite may from the former member of the Crimson Tide, who closed out an incredible month where he pitched to a 5-0 record with a 2.03 ERA and an 11.66 K/B ratio. 

Amarillo supported Ray with an offensive explosion in the sixth, when Amarillo loaded the bases for the third time in the game. After Jack Hurley walked to take the lead and a wild pitch brought in one more, Kristian Robinson ripped a single to left to bring home two more. Unfortunately Robinson had to hobble down the line after hurting something in his lower body on a swing just pitches before the single. Conticello would replace him at first base as the Amarillo continued their barrage. Just one batter later Tommy Troy delivered again for his first multi-home run game in his professional career, doubling his season total coming in, with all of them coming off southpaws. A small tweak seemed to pay dividends tonight for Troy tonight. "It's maybe a small thing with my hands I felt earlier today, just to help lift the ball. For the most part I've been hitting the ball low and on the ground a lot. I don't want to like change my swing, but there's just been small tweaks here and there, just trying to get me to hit the ball in the air a little more." The two-run shot would put a cap on a six-run fifth inning and push the lead to 8-2 Amarillo.

Photo Credit: Parker Liles for Sideline Sports

Just one inning later Jose Fernandez singled on an 0-2 pitch from Avery Weems before Ivan Melendez put the game out of reach with his second blast of the series and his team leading ninth of the year despite joining the club late recovering from an injury. Caleb Roberts would deliver the last run for Amarillo a few innings later with a single on a night where he would reach base four times, leading the Sod Poodles in that category on a big night from the offense.

The bullpen put together back to back great performances, with Wednesday’s being in the running for their best of the season so far. With Ray going deep Conor Grammes and Alfred Morillo were borderline flawless, pitching a combined 2 innings, without giving up a baserunner, and striking out three Roughriders to finish off a great bounce back fo the Sod Poodles.

Amarillo saw everyone reach base last night and got multi-hit games from Troy, Roberts, Fernandez, Melendez, and Groover who picked up his fourth multi-hit game in his last six outings.

Thursday Starting Pitcher Preview

RHP Josh Stephan (6.30 ERA - 6.46 FIP / 29 K - 11 BB)

Stephan won the first duel against Short this year in April when he pitched 5 innings of two hit and one run baseball. Christian Cerda did the only signifigant damage against Stephan taking him deep in that game.

LHP Avery Short (4.46 ERA - 5.06 FIP / 35 K - 16 BB)

Avery Short is coming off his best outing of 2025 in Corpus where he pitched five innings of shutout ball helping the team shut out the Hooks 1-0. The left hander has strung together a great May so far with a 2.11 ERA in 21.1 innings and a 4.20 K/BB. "Short knows himself super well, he knows he's gotta go out and execute. 
He knows he's gotta go out and locate, and he does an extremely phenomenal job at doing that." Sod Poodles catcher Drake Osborn said this week. "He's prepared, he understands who he is, and that allows him to have the success that he has. He's really good at executing, really good at locating, and he's not going to shy away from hitters."

The lefty struggled early his first outing against the Roughriders giving up 5 runs in the first three innings, including a Wyatt Langford homer while he was on assignment, before settling in and going 5.2 innings for Amarillo.