BY JONATHAN SKUZA
ROCHESTER, N.Y. — The Rochester Red Wings (19-14, 57-49) dropped the series finale to the Omaha Storm Chasers (18-15, 67-39) 9-1 Sunday afternoon after an offensive explosion from Omaha.
”We got behind the eight ball real quickly,” Red Wings manager Matthew LeCroy said. “Offense had another sluggish day. We just couldn’t really get going. We faced a good team and we split with them. It was a test to see where we were at. We played some good ball games, then all of a sudden the offense didn’t show up the last three days.”
VIEW MORE PHOTOS FROM JOE TERRITO.
Omaha’s offense started out strong as they put Rochester down by five before they even had a chance to get up to the dish. Nick Loftin drove in John Rave to open up the scoring with a base hit. Two batters later, CJ Alexander launched a grand slam 391 feet on a full count pitch to give the Storm Chasers a lead they never gave up.
Alexander would launch a 440 foot solo homer to extend the Omaha lead four innings later. The Storm Chasers would add three more runs in the seventh thanks to some walks and base hits.
”They have to compete, throw the ball over,” LeCroy said about the pitching struggles on Sunday. “Let the defense play. We don’t have a lot of strikeout guys. We have to attack the strike zone and get early contact and then hopefully our defense can make the plays.”
The Rochester offense has struggled the last three contests with driving in one run in the last 28 innings. Rochester broke a 24 inning scoreless streak when Jose Tena scored on a Carter Kieboom fielder’s choice RBI. Rochester grounded into two inning ending double plays and only tallied five hits Sunday.
”When you got good pitching like they got, you don’t have many scoring opportunities,” LeCroy said. “So when you do, you gotta take advantage of it and we didn’t do that the last couple of games.”
The Red Wings faced one of the toughest pitching staffs in the International League. Omaha lead the league with a team ERA of 4.19. The Red Wings found themselves in multiple games that were pitchers duels including Friday and Saturday’s contest where the Red Wings were kept off the scoreboard.
Rochester finished their home stand 6-6, splitting both series against Lehigh Valley and Omaha respectively. Rochester for the rest of the month of August will take on teams that are in front or just behind them in the standings as they will continue to play playoff baseball for the first time since 2013.
“We play to try to win every series and these guys are confident,” LeCroy said. “We have a talented group and they believe in each other. We just have to have some things go our way.It is a dogfight every time we go to Buffalo no matter where each of us are in the standings.”
The Rochester Red Wings will travel an hour west on the thruway as they will begin a series against the Buffalo Bisons (14-19, 51-56) starting Tuesday at 6:35 p.m. Both team’s starters have yet to be announced.
Leave a Reply