Courtesy of RedWingsBaseball.com
Rochester recorded 14 hits, all singles, and Michael Tonkin stranded the winning run on base in the ninth inning as the Red Wings won their fifth straight game, 3-2, over the Buffalo Bisons Tuesday night at Coca-Cola Field.
Zack Granite and Mitch Garver both finished 3-for-5. Granite drove in two runs and Garver scored the other run for the Red Wings (41-34), who have lost just one time in the last 13 games since game two on June 17.
Rochester turned to left-hander Nik Turley in his return start to the Wings after being optioned from Minnesota on June 23. The Red Wings gave him an early 1-0 lead in the second inning as Granite drove in a run with a two-out single off Lucas Harrell (0-1), though a runner was thrown out at the plate on the play.
Rowdy Tellez tied the game with a solo home run off Turley in the bottom half of the 2nd. The Bisons (35-43) took their first lead in the third as a passed ball aided an RBI groundout by Jake Elmore. The unearned run was the last Turley would allow.
Granite delivered again with two outs in the fourth, driving in Leonardo Reginatto to tie the game.
Turley tossed two 1-2-3 innings, needing just eight pitches in the first and 11 in the fourth. He needed 90 pitches to get through his other three innings, allowing three hits and two walks with six strikeouts.
D.J. Baxendale (1-2) relieved Turley to begin the sixth.
Rochester would take the lead in the seventh but it wasn’t easy. Granite and Garver singled to open the inning. Then, with J.B. Shuck at the plate, a wild pitch allowed Granite to advance to third base. Garver hesitated, took off for second and the throw from Bisons catcher Mike Ohlman was cut off by shortstop Gregorio Petit who fired back to the plate as Granite never broke stride and was out easily at the plate. Shuck followed with a single to put runners at the corners with one out. Harrell was replaced by Murphy Smith and Smith got Matt Hague to pop out before ByungHo Park drove in the go-ahead run with a two-out single.
Michael Tonkin fired a perfect eighth inning but Buffalo would not go quietly in the ninth. Back-to-back controversial hit-by-pitches opening the inning for the Bisons, the first of which resulted in the ejection of Red Wings hitting coach of Chad Allen by home plate umpire Alex Tosi. Tonkin the struck out the next three batters to end the game.
The win is the sixth by Rochester at Coca-Cola Field in 2017, the first time the Wings have won more than five games in a single season in the history of the ballpark which opened in 1988.
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