BY MIKE ROSE
Rochester, NY — Runs were nearly impossible to come by on Friday night at Innovative Field and ultimately the Rochester Red Wings’ four-game winning streak came to an end as they fell to the Omaha Storm Chasers in 10 innings, 1-0. The Red Wings (19-12, 57-47) failed to muster much of any offense against the Storm Chasers’ pitching staff, posting just five hits in the game.
“We had two opportunities there to get a guy in from third with less than two outs and we didn’t get it done,” Red Wings manager Matt LeCroy. “But, they just beat us tonight on the mound.”
The winning run for the Storm Chasers came around in the 10th when Drew Waters began the inning on second base as the automatic runner. Waters would advance to third on a groundball and then score on a slow roller to Red Wings third basemen Brady House who fired home in time but well high, leaving catcher Drew Millas without a play. The Red Wings would fail to advance their automatic runner, House, off second in the bottom half of the frame.
Daniel Lynch IV stood in the way of Rochester’s offense finding its footing for much of the night. He continued his dominant play for the Storm Chasers this season, working 6.1 shutout innings allowing five hits and a walk with four strikeouts.. Lynch earned a no-decision for his effort but lowered his season ERA to 3.36.
Despite his success, the Red Wings’ best chances to strike came against Lynch. The first came in the fourth inning after Darren Baker led off with Rochester’s first hit and was followed by a booming double to left field by Andres Chaparro. Baker tried to score from first but was cut down at the plate. Chapparo advanced to third on the play but was cut down at the plate as well after running on contact on a groundball from Joey Meneses.
The next chance came when the Red Wings finally chased Lynch in the seventh on hits from Meneses and Millas. Steven Cruz entered out of the bullpen with the two standing in scoring position and one out and struck out Stone Garrett and Jack Dunn to keep the game scoreless. Cruz would combine in relief with Carlos Hernandez to keep the Red Wings off the bases for the final 3.2 innings. The pair posted seven strikeouts to help keep Rochester’s offense quiet late.
Keeping the Red Wings in the game was Andrew Alvarez. He pieced together one of his best performances as a Red Wing on Friday night pitching 5.2 shutout innings allowing four hits and one walk with four punchouts. He would also get a no-decision in the effort, his longest as a Red Wing.
“Just going off where we were last week, getting ahead and trying to get a lot of first-pitch strikes and win the 1-1 (counts). The defense played outstanding behind me and made a bunch of great plays and I kept the ball on the ground,” Alvarez said of what worked for him on Friday.
The Red Wings will be back in action tomorrow as they host the Storm Chasers in the penultimate game of the series. Brad Lord (2-0, 3.82) is slated to get the start for Rochester while Omaha is expected to send Dinelson Lamet (0-0, 5.40) to the mound. The first pitch from Innovative Field is set for 6:45 p.m.
Tough loss. Wings finally getting some good pitching and they wasted a great effort last night. They played the bottom of the 10th poorly. You have to at least tie before you win. The 1st hitter’s job is simply to advance the ghost runner to 3rd, where he can possibly score on an out. Instead our guy strikes out…a wasted out. THEN the fly ball which might have tied the game. Finally a game ending ‘k’.
Still their big chance came with runners on 2nd and 3rd and one out. Two k’s followed. Gotta get bat on ball in those cases. But if they get the ‘w’ tonite, they win the series.
Losing so many of our best hitters may start to come home to roost for the good guys. No offense to Blankenhorn, but I hope the Nats send him back at least for the final 4 weeks.