Patterson wakes up in 9th, leads ’Topes to sweep Sounds
Hits 3-run walk-off homer after message from manager
It was three pitches. And Jordan Patterson looked like he didn’t have a chance at any of them.
Foul. Swinging strike. Called strike.
Inning over. Albuquerque’s three-run rally over in the bottom of the seventh inning Tuesday of an eventual 7-4 win.
With the would-be goahead run stranded 90 feet away at third base, Patterson, 0-for-3 to that point in the game, dropped his head and walked back to the host Isotopes dugout looking nothing like the focused, team leader he is known to be in the clubhouse.
Then, ’Topes manager Glenallen Hill walked up behind Patterson in the dugout with a question — one that after 308 games as Patterson’s manager in Albuquerque, he didn’t really need an answer to.
“‘G’ said, ‘Hey man, why’d you wake up this morning?’” Patterson recalled. “I said, man, I was just happy to be here. He said, ‘Well, you woke up for this next at-bat.’”
Two innings later, with the game tied 4-4 and Raimel Tapia again standing 90 feet away on third base representing the
would-be go-ahead run — a run that would secure for the Isotopes the organization’s first four-game sweep since September 2016 — Patterson woke up.
The 26-year-old former fourth-round draft pick of the Colorado Rockies battled off fastball after fastball from Nashville reliever J.B. Wendelken. On the 11th pitch of the at-bat, Patterson launched a no-doubt, walk-off three-run home run over the right-centerfield wall, pushing the Isotopes to a victory.
“I’ll never forget it,” Hill said of that moment in the dugout with Patterson after his seventh-inning at-bat. “That’s just one of those things from my perspective when you’re watching a guy and you know he’s been battling, sometimes they get a little too critical. You have to lift them up. Free them up.
“I saw ... that he was going to come up again and affect the game. I knew it based on how the game was playing out, and I wanted him to know that there’s nothing more beautiful than waking up and getting to play this game. And, guess what? You’re going to win this game.”
For Patterson, it was home run No. 15 this season and his first walk-off home run since hitting a pair of them in 2015 — one with High-A Modesto, the other off a position player in Double-A New Britain.
“That felt good, especially today,” Patterson said. “I didn’t have great at-bats. The first four weren’t great — a couple of punch outs and a fly ball (in addition to a hit by pitch). Prior to that last one, my prior at bat was bad.”
He said Hill’s brief talk had all the effect the manager hoped, clearing Patterson’s mind for that final ninth-inning showdown with Wendelken.
“I finally got one I could handle,” Patterson said. “... It was a fastball. It was an 11-pitch at bat. He threw me 10 heaters. You know, you throw me so many heaters, I’m gonna put one in play.”
While Tuesday’s day prior to the ninth-inning Gatorade bath at home plate wasn’t Patterson’s best work, he has been swinging the bat well of late. He’s hitting .270 on the season with 44 RBIs.
In the four-game sweep of the Sounds, Patterson drove in seven runs, had a pair of home runs, a double, two walks and drew four hit-by-pitches (he already has the Isotopes franchise record with 42 all-time).
After the game, Hill flashed a smile and said the way Patterson has been progressing of late, the manager had one more prophetic message.
“Oh, there’s more to come with Jordan Patterson.”