Hagerstown rallies from nine down to stun Charleston 13-12

Hagerstown looked buried, then looked dangerous, then looked impossible to stop. The Flying Boxcars erased a 10-1 deficit and stunned Charleston 13-12 in a three-and-a-half-hour Atlantic League thriller on June 20, riding another late surge that exposed just how hard it has become to finish them off.

That is the story of this Hagerstown team in one night: it absorbs the first punch, keeps stacking competitive at-bats and eventually turns a game that should be gone into one that Charleston no longer knows how to protect. Alex Isola gave the Boxcars their first jolt with a solo homer in the opening inning, but Charleston seized control in the second and third, with Shawon Dunston belting a two-run homer and the Dirty Birds using a seven-run burst to take command. When Charleston pushed the lead to 10-1 with a three-run fifth, the game looked over.

It was anything but. Baron Radcliff started the climb with a two-run homer in the sixth, and the seventh became the inning Charleston could not survive. Darick Hall drove in two runs with a single, Robert Brooks launched a three-run homer and a Charleston wild pitch added another run, pulling Hagerstown even at 11-11. The Boxcars had turned a nine-run hole into a fresh game in one inning, a reminder that their offense can keep coming even after the big inning appears to have passed.

Charleston briefly reclaimed the lead in the eighth on an RBI single from Yassel Pino, but Hagerstown answered immediately. Hall drove in two more runs to push the Boxcars back in front for good, finishing with a season-high four RBIs and becoming the central figure in a comeback built on patience, contact and a willingness to punish every mistake. Clay Helvey handled the final inning, striking out two in the ninth to secure the save and preserve Hagerstown’s hold on first place in the North Division by two games.

The win fit a volatile run against Charleston. Hagerstown had beaten the Dirty Birds 15-6 the night before, then saw Charleston come back with a 16-9 victory on June 21, leaving the series swinging wildly from one end to the other. DJ Johnson started for Hagerstown and Keyvius Sampson for Charleston, but the real separator was how one lineup kept believing and the other let a game that was in its grasp slip away.