BY JONATHAN SKUZA
ROCHESTER, N.Y. — The Rochester Red Wings (10-28) fell 3-1 in extra innings to the Durham Bulls (25-15) Tuesday evening in a contest where runs were hard to come by.
”Really proud of the pitching, for the most part, they gave us a chance,” Red Wings manager Matt LeCroy said. “On offense, we grounded into a couple of double plays and had big spots but didn’t score.”
The first run of the contest came off the bat of Bob Seymour in the seventh inning when the left handed hitter hit the first pitch he saw down the right field line over the fence to break the tie for Durham.
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Rochester responded in the bottom half of the inning when Andrew Knizner and Darren Baker smacked back-to-back doubles to tie the ballgame.
Not until the extra frame did another run cross the plate when Durham used a Josh Lowe sacrifice fly and a Eloy Jimenez RBI base hit to give the Bulls a 3-1 lead. Jimenez was the Durham leading hitter with four of their five hits.
Rochester went down in order in the bottom half of the inning to drop back-to-back contests.
“Offensively, when you are facing the best pitching in the league, you have to try to do whatever you can to get the guy in,” LeCroy said. “Unfortunately, we didn’t do that.”
Rochester collected 10 hits total during Tuesday’s contest, but had a hard time driving in runners when they were scoring position. The Red Wings finished 1-for-13 with runners in scoring position and had three inning ending double plays in spots where they could have gotten the jump on Durham. Rochester left eight runners on base during the ballgame.
”We got a chance to win and didn’t take advantage of it,” LeCroy said. “You gotta pounce on opportunities. Situational hitting is big. When you have guys in scoring position, you have to lock in and do whatever you can to drive them in.”
Seth Shuman gave the Red Wings six innings of shutout baseball. Shuman went six innings where he only gave up two hits and one walk while striking out four for Rochester.
”I stuck with what got me here,” Shuman said. “Just because I had one bad start, that doesn’t mean the world is over. I have been able to mix pitches in and trust my defense and go from there.”
With a younger roster there comes some growing pains and a lot teachable moments. Rochester since flipping to the month of May, has played slightly better with a 4-6 record so far. The Red Wings have been able to bounce back from some losses and have some more consistency.
”Offensively, you see the young guys get more at-bats,” LeCroy said. “They’re having better at-bats and getting into a better position to hit. Pitching wise, we need to improve on all facets. Hopefully, we’ll continue to improve as we go out. Tonight was a good start.”
The Red Wings and Bulls will continue their series on Wednesday at 4:05 p.m. as Rochester will send righty Adrian Sampson (0-0, 0.00) to the mound and Durham will have right-hander Joe Boyle (2-3, 1.69) toe the slab.
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