By CHUCKIE MAGGIO
Jake Noll stood at second base with outstretched arms, almost in disbelief that his fly ball found the right field grass. Luis García ran to Noll for an embrace as the second-year duo celebrated the Rochester Red Wings’ first victory over the Buffalo Bisons this season.
Rochester found the answers it couldn’t muster Thursday night in Game 1 of Friday’s doubleheader. The Red Wings hit solo home runs to lead off the third and fourth innings, their first two homers at Frontier Field this year, to erase a 2-0 deficit. And Noll’s double with two outs in the seventh inning, his first hit in four plate appearances, eluded a diving Cullen Large to score Andrew Stevenson.
“I thought it was a pop-up to right field and it really was,” Noll remarked. “For some reason the outfielder was playing really far back and the wind kind of pushed it down, and we didn’t have to go to extra innings.”
Starting pitcher Luis Reyes did not surrender a hit after Vinny Capra’s third-inning homer, while Alberto Baldonado and Tyler Clippard combined to record the last seven outs. Clippard, who threw a scoreless seventh, earned his first Triple-A win since 2009.
García thumped Bowden Francis’s first pitch of the third inning into the Red Wings bullpen, his first homer since April 7. Former Bison Richard Urena, known as a bit of a Red Wing “killer” last season after recording 22 total bases and 11 RBI against Rochester, lifted a fly ball just over the right-center field fence to tie the game.
Urena also likely saved a double in the top of the seventh, ranging to his right in deep third base territory to secure a ground ball and nab Capra at first base.
The walk-off victory marked Rochester’s first such win since last Aug. 21 against Lehigh Valley, which also occurred in the first game of a doubleheader.
The Red Wings did not continue the momentum in the second game, brushed back by an eight-run Buffalo third that led to an eventual 9-4 defeat. The first eight Bisons reached base that inning, chasing starter Jefry Rodriguez. Rodriguez allowed six runs on six hits, while Sterling Sharp yielded three runs on two hits in 0.2 innings of relief.
Rodriguez, who tossed three hitless innings last Saturday at Toledo, took the loss.
“Jefry had a hard time,” LeCroy assessed. “He was basically a one-pitch pitcher. Had trouble with the slider; any type of secondary (pitch), he didn’t hit on it enough. And then they took advantage of one pitch.”
Rochester tallied a pair of runs in the fourth and fifth innings to thin Buffalo’s advantage to 9-4, while four Wings (Ben Braymer, Jordan Weems, Sam Clay and Carl Edwards Jr.) combined to deal 4.1 innings of scoreless relief.
The last eight Rochester batters, however, went down in order; five of them struck out.
“We didn’t do the job on the mound, and too big of a hole to come out of,” LeCroy noted, adding, “Hopefully tomorrow we’ll come out and pitch better, and get back in this series.”
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