If anybody but Eric Young Jr. had been on third, the series against Sacramento might have had a different finish for the Sky Sox.

Instead of leaving town on a three-game losing streak, the speedy Young slid under a tag to cap a two-run rally and help Colorado Springs salvage the second game of a doubleheader 3-2 on Monday afternoon.

“I was going the whole way,” said Young, who narrowly beat River Cats pitcher Henry Rodriguez in a foot race. “The ball got back there and took that big ricochet off the backstop, but I had a pretty good jump and a pretty good idea I was going to make it.”

After losing Monday’s first game 7-4, the completion of a game started Sunday and delayed by rain, the Sky Sox earned the split with a rally that started with a Kenny Perez pinch-hit single and a Young walk.

Mike McCoy rolled a single into right field to tie the score, leaving Young at third with the hard-throwing Rodriguez — who can touch 100 mph but has issues with control — facing Mike Miller.

The 22-year-old’s first pitch sailed behind Miller and the race was on.

“He and the pitcher kind of looked like they were going to get there at the same time,” Sky Sox manager Stu Cole said. “(Young), being as fast as he is, just beat it.”

The first game was resumed at 10:30 a.m. in front of a few dozen fans with the River Cats leading 3-2 in the bottom of the third.

The Sky Sox immediately tied the score, but Sacramento pounded Jason Hirsh for four runs as it batted around in the fifth and blew the game open.

Game 2 — more competitive thanks to Esmil Rogers’ solid start (five innings, two runs) — was just as frustrating for Colorado Springs, as it struggled with fundamentals like scoring runs from third with less than two outs.A pair of first-and-third-with-nobody-out situations resulted in just one run, and that lone run came on a double-play ball.

Defensively, Miller added to the troubles when he misplayed a catchable line drive in left field into a double, leading to a run.

But the series, which started with a record-setting 19-0 win on Friday before a pair of Sacramento wins, turned back in the Sky Sox favor in the brief time it took Young to dash to the plate.

“The guys have been battling all year like this,” Cole said. “We had some chances early and we didn’t capitalize. Did we need it? Yeah, we did.”

Photo by