Hagerstown Flying Boxcars are walk-off winners in home opener at Meritus Park

The Hagerstown Flying Boxcars are all about grand entrances in the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball.

On Saturday night, in their inaugural home opener in the new Meritus Park in downtown Hagerstown, the Boxcars rallied for three runs in the bottom of the 10th inning for a 6-5 victory over the Long Island Ducks in a light, steady rain.

That came nine days after they opened the season in historic fashion on the road, with three pitchers combining for a no-hitter in a 4-0 win over the York Revolution.

Historic! Boxcars win season opener with no-hitter

"There are a lot of good things happening for us right now," said Boxcars outfielder Brandon Pugh, who was the hero Saturday night. "Hopefully, we just keep putting it together and enjoy the summer."

The 10th-inning rally

The Boxcars trailed 5-3 with two outs and runners on the corners in the bottom of the 10th against left-handed reliever Emilio Marquez.

Curtis Terry hit a slow grounder to shortstop that he beat out for an RBI single, cutting the deficit to 5-4.

Osvaldo Abreu followed with another grounder to Ducks shortstop Ivan Castillo, who didn't field the ball cleanly, allowing Abreu to reach safely on the error to load the bases for Pugh, a left-handed batter.

On the fourth pitch of his at-bat, facing a 2-1 count, Pugh lined the ball to the opposite field in left for a two-run, walk-off single, igniting a celebration.

"It was exciting," Pugh said. "Going into that at-bat, I knew it was lefty-lefty so I couldn't do too much. I had to think 'Go the other way' the whole at-bat. I was pretty much looking for something middle-away that I could handle. I got the pitch, and I didn't miss it.

"That was awesome. We were already excited to just be here in the first place, so winning like that was big time."

'A win is a win'

The Boxcars blew a 3-2 lead in the ninth as Long Island tied the game on a one-out, solo home run by Rixon Wingrove.

Former big-leaguer Chance Sisco, who was a backup catcher for the Baltimore Orioles from 2017-21, put the Ducks up 5-3 in the 10th with a two-out, two-run blast.

"That was big for them," Pugh said. "We just had to find a way to get back in the fight."

The Boxcars sent their new fans home happy.

"The result was good, but it wasn't exactly the way we scripted it," Hagerstown manager Mark Mason said. "But a win is a win, and you take them any way you can get them."

Boxcars fueled by fans

Although the Boxcars are limiting attendance and not selling single-game tickets during this initial six-game homestand, Mason credited the home crowd for firing up his team on a cool, rainy night.

The announced paid attendance was 1,136.

"There was a lot of excitement," Mason said. "The fans were great. For the amount of fans that were here, it seemed like there was four times that. They were loud, and they were into it. Players really feed off of that. When you go to ballparks where there's not a lot of people and no noise and they're not into it, it's kind of hard to get yourself fired up to play. But the fans here were great tonight. They were waiting for us when the game was over, so it was a lot of fun."

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: Hagerstown Flying Boxcars win home opener with 10th-inning rally