BY JONATHAN SKUZA
ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Quality pitching is what helps good baseball teams win games.
For the second night in a row, the Rochester Red Wings earned a victory behind a solid pitching performance as they defeated the Durham Bulls 5-1 Friday evening.
“You can’t talk about this game without talking about the pitching,” Red Wings manager Matt LeCroy said. “To take a team with this offensive caliber and only give up four hits and one run. It gave us a chance.”
Joan Adon got the start for Rochester and dazzled the 8,022 in attendance with six innings of shutout baseball to earn the win on the mound. The right-hander matched a season-high with six strikeouts. The 23-year old retired eight straight Bulls between the third and fifth innings. Adon only allowed two hits and kept the Bulls hitless for four straight innings.
“I thought he was in really good control of the ballgame,” LeCroy stated. “The one inning he had traffic and he was able to get through and make some really nice pitches.”
Adon’s solid performance on the mound comes a day after Jose Urena pitched five solid innings to earn his first win of the season. The last time Rochester had starting pitchers win back-to-back starts was on May 27 and 28 against Toledo when Wily Peralta and Paolo Espino both earned victories during their respective starts.
After Adon departed, the Rochester bullpen finished out the last three innings allowing only one run on a Tristan Gray solo home run to lead off the seventh inning. Andres Machado picked up his third save of the season while pitching an inning and two thirds and striking out one.
“The bullpen I thought did a nice job securing it,” LeCroy said about the bullpen’s performance. “This was a big win for us against a tough team that we knew was going to be a battle for us.”
The Rochester offense provided the run support Adon needed on Friday. The Red Wings run support came throughout the lineup.
Jack Dunn opened the scoring in the second inning with an RBI base hit that scored Drew Millas who collected an one out base hit.
Derek Hill brought Millas around to score in the fourth to extend the Rochester lead.
Jake Alu drove in Dunn and Jeter Downs to double the Rochester lead in the sixth. Dunn reached base via a walk and Downs reached on a base hit and then stole second.
“We’re just a super resilient group,” Millas stated. “A lot of experienced guys, a lot of guys that are grinders and love to fight at-bats so were never easy outs all the way up one through nine. We had a good plan and they executed it and it ended up being a good win for us.”
After the Gray solo home run in the seventh, Matt Adams answered with his own solo home run that went over the right field wall. The long ball was his first since June 24 against the Omaha Storm Chasers which ended a 16 game home run drought.
“I think that might be the longest drought of my career,” Adams said. “So to see it go over the fence, it felt good. I’ve been coming in early the last couple of days and putting in the work and getting some things to click and getting back to feeling like myself.”
Rochester currently sits three games back of the Worcester Red Sox for first place in International East Division in the second half of the season.
The Wings (10-9/44-48) will look for the series win and to make it three straight against Durham (9-10/48-45) on Saturday at 6:45 p.m. Left-hander Anthony Banda (0-1, 7.50) will get the start for Rochester while righty Cooper Criswell (2-3, 5.51) will be on the bump for the Bulls.
Leave a Reply