By JONATHAN SKUZA
Rochester continued its struggles as the Red Wings dropped the series opener against the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Railriders 7-0 Tuesday evening.
The loss on Tuesday extended the Red Wing’s losing streak to seven games. This is Rochester’s first seven-game losing streak since last season.
Derek Dietrich opened up the scoring for the Railriders in the second inning with a single after Phillip Evans and Jake Bauers walked. Bauers scored on the single to put them up 1-0. Scranton/Wilkes-Barre then exploded for four runs in the sixth inning. It started with them loading the bases after Evans singled, Dietrich walked, and Max McDowell singled. Tim Locastro walked to extend the Railriders’ lead. Estevan Florial drove in another two-run with a base hit. Oswald Peraza extended Scranton’s lead to five runs with a sac fly to score Locastro.
The Railriders added two more runs to their lead in the eighth inning. The two runs were driven in by Locastro, an Ithaca College product, who hit his first home run of the season after McDowell walked.
Rochester’s bullpen had a rough outing giving up six of the seven runs on Tuesday. Matt Brill gave up fours on three hits and two walks in just one inning of work. Luis Avilan gave up the final two runs in the eighth inning.
Andrew Stevenson led the Red Wings with two hits in the game. Stevenson had 40% of Rochester’s hits as they were able only to get three more hits in the game.
Rochester still holds a slim half-game lead over Buffalo in the International League East Division. Lehigh Valley is a full game off the pace.
The Red Wings will look to get back into the win column and end their losing streak on Wednesday in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre at 6:35.
ted says
7 game losing streak is downright ugly. And the team right now is just a mess. Last two games they were listless as a housefly in winter. Outscored 12-1, they appear to be in a major funk, which I believe started with the blown 3-0 lead with 2 outs in the 9th on Thursday. Since then, they don’t look like the team that was playing the best baseball a Wings team had played in years.
Couple more losses and I will definitely wish we were back with the Twins again. (selfishly because I enjoy the Twins more than the Nats.)
Wake up Wings.