By Kevin Oklobzija
When the Rochester Red Wings bats couldn’t produce clutch hits on Friday night, a recent trend in the wake of recalls to the Minnesota Twins, manager Mike Quade insisted his team would nonetheless be just fine.
They’d continue to lean on pitchers, he said. After all, the Wings have the International League’s best team ERA.
But who knew he was talking about pitchers from his team AND the opposition.
Yet that was the case on Sunday afternoon in a 4-3 victory over the Buffalo Bisons.
Aaron Slegers was stellar for eight innings and Michael Tonkin was again lights-out in earning the save, but the most impactful toss from a pitcher was made by Buffalo Bisons starter Chris Rowley, whose seventh-inning throwing error allowed the tying and winning runs to score.
“All donations accepted,” Quade said afterward.
That includes help from all teams playing the Lehigh Valley IronPigs. On Sunday, that was the Pawtucket Red Sox, who blanked the IronPigs 3-0 and enabled the Wings to regain a three-game lead in the wild-card race.
The Wings trailed 3-1 through five innings but pulled within a run in the sixth when Niko Goodrum singled, stole second and scored on a single by Anthony Recker.
Then in the seventh, they used a leadoff walk to Engelb Vielma and a two-out single by Daniel Palka to take the lead, thanks to Rowley’s very wild throw.
Palka singled to right and Vielma scooted to third, with the throw to third skipping past Jason Leblebijian. Rowley was backing up the play and prevented the ball from perhaps bounding into the dugout. At the same time, Palka was heading to second.
Rowley realized he had a chance to gun down Palka but threw the ball into deep right field. Both runners scored and a 3-2 deficit became a 4-3 lead.
Slegers set down the Bisons in order in the eighth, capping a streak of 14 consecutive batters retired, then Tonkin pitched a 1-2-3 ninth.
“Tonkin has been absolutely nails,” Slegers said.
Slegers has been pretty good himself. He struck out 10, his best in Triple-A and matching his career high (set last year with Double-A Chattanooga). With a 14-4 record, he leads the IL in wins and is eighth in ERA (3.37).
The last Red Wings right-hander to lead the IL in victories was Mike Parrott, who won 15 games to share the title in 1977.
“My pitching coach when I was (managing) in Ottawa (in 1993),” Quade said.
As usual, Slegers wasn’t taking a lot of credit for Sunday’s performance. He said Recker, his catcher, was invaluable and that leading the league in wins is a byproduct of many factors.
“And I wasn’t in line for that until the last inning,” he said. “That win is all on those guys in that clubhouse.”
The Wings head to Moosic, Pa., for a four-game series with Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. At the same time, Lehigh Valley starts a four-game set at Syracuse. The Wings close the regular season at home with four games against Pawtucket while the Iron Pigs go home for four against the RailRiders. Lehigh Valley owns the tiebreaker against the Wings.
The Wings haven’t made the playoffs since 2013, when they earned the wild card with a last-day victory coupled with a last-day loss by Norfolk.
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