The San Francisco Firebells delivered the first walk-off win in WPBL history Sunday night, in the league’s 25th game, and it was far from an ordinary walk-off. San Francisco entered the bottom of the seventh inning trailing the New York Heights by five runs, rallied to score three, then, with two outs, a full count, and the bases loaded, Firebells first baseman Andréanne Leblanc hit a grand slam over the center-field fence to lift her team to 11-9 walk-off win.
Prior to that, another grand slam looked like it would be the key hit in the game.
After the Firebells plated a leadoff single by second baseman Amanda Gianelloni against Heights starter Rakyung Kim in the bottom of the first, the Heights evened things up in the top of the second against San Francisco’s Niki Eckert on a walk and a trio of singles from the bottom of their order.
When the lineup turned over, Eckert got Heights right fielder Natsuki Yonetani to pop out, bringing up catcher Denae Benites, who had gone hitless in her last seven at-bats and in three of her last four games, with the bases loaded. Benites had appeared to be expanding her zone of late, resulting in some poor contact, and swung and missed at a 1-0 pitch way outside in this at-bat. Eckert’s next pitch was also outside, but it leaked back over the plate just enough for Benites to launch it just to the left of the pitch clock in center field for just the third grand slam of the WPBL’s inaugural season, putting the Heights up 5-1.
That blast moved Benites back into a tie for the league lead in home runs with Firebells center fielder Kelsie Whitmore at nine. Since Whitmore hit her first home runs of the season on Aug. 12, Benites has homered in all three games she has played against the Firebells but in just one of the Heights’ other six games. This was the first game of those three head-to-head matchups in which Whitmore did not also hit a home run.
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San Francisco got two runs back in the bottom of the second, and the two teams exchanged runs in the third, setting the score at 6-4. It remained there into the sixth, thanks in part to strong returns to the mound from the Firebells’ Rosi del Castillo (a perfect fourth inning) and the Heights’ Jacqui Reynolds (three scoreless frames).
The Heights appeared to put the game away against lefty reliever Liz Gilder in the top of the sixth. After center fielder Suzu Narasaki manufactured a run on her own by reaching on a two-base error, stealing third, and scoring on a wild pitch, the top of the New York order added two more with the help of a walk to Yonetani, a wild-pitch, another infield error, an RBI single by first baseman London Studer, and a dropped fly ball by Jordan Eyster in left field.
The first two of those errors, on throws up the line by third baseman Jua Park and shortstop Joely Leguizamon, pulled Leblanc awkwardly into the runner at first base. After the first, which got past her, Leblanc appeared to be shouting angrily at someone. After the second, on which she caught the ball off the bag and attempted a tag only for the ball to be knocked away, she appeared to be shaken up from the contact with the runner. By that point, the Heights were up 9-4, and the Firebells seemed defeated.
Having used relief ace Jaida Lee with a nine-run lead the night before, her fourth straight closing appearance dating back to the previous Thursday, Heights manager Rocky Hanley handed that five-run lead to Claire O’Sullivan, who had been one of New York’s best pitchers to that point, leading the team with a 3.14 ERA and earning three of the team’s six wins. O’Sullivan was working on two day’s rest after throwing 62 pitches and earning the win as the starter against the Los Angeles Queens on Thursday.
The Firebells quickly loaded the bases on a hit-by-pitch, a single by right fielder Skylar Kaplan, and a throwing error by Emi Saiki, who made her first start of the season at third base in this game. Firebells backup catcher Sam Gutierrez, who started this game behind the plate with Alexia Jorge at designated hitter and has raked in her limited opportunities, followed with a booming double into the left-field gap to make it 9-6. (Gutierrez is now hitting .438/.571/.688 on the season and is third on the team in OPS at 1.259, but Jorge is one of the two hitters ahead of her.)
Still leading by three, O’Sullivan struck out pinch-hitter Ela Day-Bédard and got Gianelloni to pop out. That brought up Kelsie Whitmore as the potential tying run with two outs and first base open. Henley made the easy decision to intentionally walk Whitmore, setting up a force at every base for the final out.
The game remained in hand for New York, but the Firebells didn’t cooperate. Leguizamon hit O’Sullivan’s next pitch into center to make it 9-7, push Whitmore to second with the tying run, and put the potential winning run on base. That brought up Leblanc.
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The 24-year-old Québécois switch-hitter has been having a strong first WPBL season. She entered this game hitting .395/.500/.474 with just one strikeout in 46 plate appearances and was 1-for-4 on the game coming into the seventh inning. She has started at first base in every game for the Firebells and has arguably been the best first baseman in the league on the season, though she’s more of a bat-first player.
Still, to hear Leblanc and her teammates tell it after he game, there was a sense that she was due. Just three of her 16 hits to that point had gone for extra bases, all of them doubles. Standing at third base, Gutierrez had a feeling that Leblanc was going to connect for her first home run. She wasn’t alone.
O’Sullivan started Leblanc off with a breaking pitch inside that Benites, who had four pitches get by her earlier in the game (three wild pitches and a passed ball), slid over to block, keeping the runners in place. O’Sullivan then went outside for ball two, then came in just a little to catch the corner for strike one. Trying to get Leblanc to chase, O’Sullivan went back outside with a big breaker, but Leblanc didn’t flinch. Down 3-1, O’Sullivan fired a 71 mile per hour fastball down the middle, which Leblanc took to run the count full.
After the game, Leblanc said, “I knew my pitch was going to come, so I was not stressed on taking the 3-1 pitch down the middle, because I knew she was gonna give me one, and she did.”
O’Sullivan’s 3-2 pitch was up and over the plate. Leblanc didn’t miss it, sending it over the center field fence, between the 330-foot sign and the flag pole, for a walk-off grand slam, giving the Firebells the first walk-off victory in WPBL history and a 11-9 win.
With the win, San Francisco improved to 8-4, while New York dropped below .500 to 6-7. The Firebells, who return to action against the Hunters on Wednesday, can now clinch first place in the first WPBL regular season by winning just one of their final three games. The Heights would need San Francisco to lose all three games, including the finale of their head-to-head series with New York on Friday, and would need to win their other remaining game, against the Queens on Thursday, to claim first-place (assuming head-to-head record is used as the tiebreaker; the league still hasn’t announced that).
The Queens would need to win both of their remaining games and have someone else beat the Firebells to finish first. The Hunters, who are now four games back at 4-8, can finish no higher than third (assuming a head-to-head tiebreaker). The first ever WPBL postseason starts a week from Wednesday, on Sept. 9.
