Early inning woes haunt Red Wings

BY JONATHAN SKUZA

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — An early inning deficit was too much as the Rochester Red Wings fell to the Syracuse Mets 4-2 Saturday afternoon at Innovative Field.

”This is one of those days, where we hit it good, but we hit it right at people,” Red Wings manager Matthew LeCroy said.

Rochester gave up a run in each of the first four innings as the Mets scored off Red Wings starter Joan Adon. Rylan Bannon grounded into a double play to score Luisangel Acuna who led off the ballgame with a base hit and reached second on a balk. Hayden Senger drove in Trayce Thompson in the second with a two-out base hit. Thompson recorded an RBI double to score Bannon to extend the Mets lead. Bannon hit a sacrifice fly in the fourth inning to score Mike Brosseau.

”He still gave us a chance to win when he wasn’t at his best when only gave up four in five innings,” LeCroy said about Adon’s performance.

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Adon, in the final inning of his outing, finished with a high note with an unassisted tag out of Thompson who was trying to swipe second and struck out the last two batters he faced.

”I love the way he finished the ballgame,” LeCroy said about Adon’s fifth inning. “Hopefully, he can carry that into his next outing, but he gave us a chance without his best stuff.”

The Rochester bullpen was able to keep Syracuse off the scoreboard in the four innings they pitched. The bullpen combined for four strikeouts and only surrendered two hits.

The Red Wings offense struggled in trying to climb out of the early deficit as they did not capitalize on opportunities with runners in scoring position. Rochester finished 0-for-5 with runners in scoring position and left seven mens on base.

In the first inning, Rochester had the bases loaded after rehabbing Victor Robles, Darren Baker, and Jake Alu all drew walks in the first inning and were not able to drive any of them home.

”Seems like we’ve been getting a little bit bigger on our swings and popping balls up,” LeCroy said. “I think guys are wanting to do so much at times, that their focus tends to get a little bit too strong and trying to do too much.”

Jack Dunn gave the Red Wings a small offensive spark in the fourth inning when he took a 1-0 pitch and sent it 390 feet into the visitors bullpen in left field to make it 4-1.

”We had a good scouting report on the guy,” Dunn said. “I knew what he was going throw me and I got a pitch I could handle and I hit it out of there.”

Dunn also played very well defensively as he recorded eight assists at shortstop on Saturday.

”Just a fun a spot to play,” Dunn said. “You get a lot of action, especially with [Joan] Adon and [Luis] Reyes on the mound, a lot of two seam and sinker guys and their approach to get a lot of ground balls to third and short.”

”I’ve been a Jack Dunn fan ever since I laid my eyes on him four years ago,” LeCroy said. “He’s got to grind everyday like he’s doing and show to people that he can plat at a high level.”

Rochester was able to cut the Mets lead in the following inning with a sacrifice fly of their own Juan Yepez, who drove in Baker who tallied a one out base hit.

The Red Wings’ offense went cold after the fifth inning as 12 straight batters were set down as Rochester was not able to cut into the Mets lead which led to the defeat.

In a series that has gone back and forth between the two teams, Rochester will look to execute better with runners in scoring position.

”We got to pitch,” LeCroy said. “Offensively, we just go to take advantage of when we have runners in scoring position and not get too big. Hopefully big things will happen.”

Rochester (14-14) will look to capture the series finale tomorrow as the Wings will send right-hander Jackson Rutledge (1-1, 8.44), while Syracuse (17-13) will have righty Dom Hamel (1-1, 5.16) toe the slab with first pitch scheduled for 1:05 p.m.