BY JONATHAN SKUZA
ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Jake Alu hit his first career Triple-A home run that helped the Rochester Red Wings to their second straight win against the Omaha Storm Chasers Friday evening.
Alu hit a two-run home run over the right-field wall for his first career home run. The long ball helped in the 3-0 shutout victory for Rochester.
“He went soft away for the first few pitches and tried to come in with a heater and missed his spot and took advantage of it,” Alu said.”Those are the kind of swings that keep you coming back for more.”
Alu’s round-tripper opened the scoring for the Red Wings and the game in the fifth inning. Jake Noll led off the inning with a base hit, before Alu hit the ball over the wall. Rochester added an insurance run the following inning. Josh Palacios hit an RBI single that drove in Ildemaro Vargas who walked earlier in the inning.
“Finally we scored two and got a big insurance run there in the sixth that was big too,” Red Wings manager Matthew LeCroy said. “Anytime we can win this game like this, that’s really good. Gotta come out tomorrow and try to win the series it’s a big game.”
For a second straight game, Rochester received stellar pitching from its starter and bullpen. Frank Kilome made his Red Wings debut and did not disappoint the 7,216 attendance Friday evening. Kilome threw five and two-thirds strong innings. He did give up 8 hits, but behind some strong defense, he kept Omaha off the board in his outing. Kilome struck out two Storm Chasers during his pitching performance. Francisco Perez came in relief first and had a strong inning and a third performance out of the bullpen. He got the final out of the sixth inning getting a strikeout. He got another strikeout in the seventh and kept the game scoreless. Curtis Taylor came in in the eighth inning and recorded two strikeouts in a strong one-inning outing out of the bullpen, Finally, Patrick Murphy for a second straight night got the save with a one, two, three inning with two strikeouts in the ninth.
“They’ve been outstanding,” LeCroy said.”It’s a shutout. We’ve been really good and were gonna keep getting better with Mason Thompson coming. He’ll be a nice addition to our team.”
Thompson was optioned by the Washington Nationals on July 14th to Rochester.
Omaha recorded nine hits on Friday. Eight-hole hitter Gabriel Cancel led the Storm Chasers with three hits in the contest Friday.
With the win Friday, Rochester is currently tied with two other teams for first place in the IL East Division.
Rochester will look to take the series tomorrow against Omaha at 6:05 on Saturday. Right-hander Logan Verrett will take the mound for Rochester.
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