BY JONATHAN SKUZA
ROCHESTER, N.Y. — The Rochester Red Wings (11-14, 38-59) late rally fell short as they fell 7-5 to the Scranton/WB RailRiders (19-5, 57-39) Friday evening.
”That’s one of the best teams in Triple-A,” Red Wings Matt LeCroy said. “We were hanging in right there with them, but things got away tonight.”
Rochester’s first three runs came in the sixth inning when Andrew Pinckney launched a two-out three-run home run to right center field to make it 4-3 at the time. Pinckney’s long ball tied him for the team lead at 13 with Nick Schnell and Brady House who is currently up with the Nationals.
”He has a raw talent, ” LeCroy said. “He’s got power and can hit a homer to any part of the field. When he stays close to the zone, and he can get a barrel on it, it has a good chance to be hit really hard.”
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Rochester pushed across two more runs in then ninth when Robert Hassell III collected his second hit of the evening with a two RBI single. Trey Lipscomb and J.T. Arruda scored after they recorded base hits earlier in the inning. Schnell collected two hits including a double for Rochester while Yohandy Morales and Jose Tena each picked up a base hit in the sixth before Pinckney’s homer.
”He’s been a really big part of our offense ever since he came back,” LeCroy said about Hassell III. “He’s starting to grow. He’s a young kid who’s learning every day.”
Scranton jumped on Rochester early in the ballgame with a two run first inning. Jesus Rodriguez and Everson Pereira executed a double steal that allowed Rodriguez to steal home and score. Rafael Flores would drive Pereira later in the inning with a base hit.
Starting in the fifth inning, Scranton scored in four straight innings. Duke Ellis scored in the fifth when he was stealing third and was able to score on a wild pitch in the same sequence. Jeimer Candelario scored T.J. Rumfield with an RBI base hit after Rumfield led off the sixth with a double. The seventh saw two runs from Scranton with Rodriguez scoring Ellis with a base hit and a sacrifice fly Rumfield. Candelario capped off the run in the eighth with a solo lead-off home run into the Red Wings bullpen.
Cade Cavalli got the start for Rochester where he had an interesting outing for Rochester. The righty gave up four runs on 10 hits and a wild pitch, but struck out 10 while throwing 64 of his 86 pitches for strikes.
“He battled and kept us in it,” LeCroy said. “We clawed our way back in it, but we didn’t get that shut down inning in the seventh.”
Rochester has given up a run to Scranton in the first inning in the last three games of the series. Rochester was able to recover from it on Thursday but on Friday and Wednesday they were not able to catch up and ended up on the losing side.
”You just hope to execute,” LeCroy said. “We didn’t execute. They have a good team and you can’t make mistakes or they are going to make you pay.”
Rochester and Scranton/WB will continue their series on Saturday at 6:45 p.m. as the Red Wings will send southpaw Shinnosuke Ogasawara (2-1, 3.60) to the mound while the RailRiders will have righty Carlos Carrasco (3-2, 3.38) toe the slab.
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