Life is tough. You've got to celebrate your dubs.
Andy Lugo, third baseman for the High-A Greenville Drive, has a firm grasp of that concept -- but a flexible grip on his bat. The 21-year-old Red Sox prospect delivered a walk-off knock for the Drive on Saturday night and immediately followed it with an epic bat flip. He was joined by his teammates for one of the lengthiest and most exuberant celebrations you'll ever see in a Minor League Baseball game in April.
The hit to deep center field ended a game the Drive trailed the White Sox-affiliated Winston-Salem Dash by a margin of 7-0 in the bottom of the fifth inning, and Lugo's capper -- which put the game in the books with a 10-9 score in the 12th -- followed his game-tying homer in the eighth.
The Greenville broadcast cuts from Lugo's swing to a wide shot tracking the ball flying to center, but another projectile -- Lugo's bat -- flies into orbit in the middle of the shot, shooting all the way over the top of the video frame before tumbling back through to complete a monstrous arc.
Lugo's teammates mobbed him and emptied two Gatorade coolers on him as he rounded first base, and in the ensuing mob scene he ripped off his jersey and flipped that high into the air, flexing and pounding his chest as the rest of the Drive team slapped him on the back and jumped up and down amidst hoots and hollers.
It had been a hotly contested affair. Both managers -- the Drive's Liam Carroll and the Dash's Pat Leyland -- were ejected over the course of the 3-hour, 38-minute marathon, as was Dash first baseman Wes Kath.
The game-ending liner to the deepest part of the park was Lugo's third hit of the game, but it may have felt especially satisfying because he'd struck out on three pitches with runners on second and third in his most recent at-bat, in the 10th.
Lugo signed with the Red Sox out of the Dominican Republic in 2021 and slashed .271/.346/.392 with 25 stolen bases over 87 games for Single-A Salem last year before getting promoted to Greenville for the final 21 games of the season. He has a .313 OBP with six extra-base hits through 12 games this year.