BY JONATHAN SKUZA
ROCHESTER, N.Y. — The Rochester Red Wings (20-26, 47-71) surrendered five home runs as they fell 12-4 to the Toledo Mud Hens (28-18, 67-54) Tuesday evening.
”We didn’t get the shut down inning that we kinda needed,” Red Wings manager Matt LeCroy said. “That’s when the game went downhill, and we just never got back in the game and that was the dagger.”
After the Red Wings and Mud Hens traded runs leading to a 3-3 tie going into the fourth inning, Toledo broke the game open with four home runs in the next two innings. Gage Workman snapped the 3-3 deadlock with a two-run homer down the right field line.
Justyn-Henry Malloy led off the next inning with a solo long ball to left center. Trei Cruz put one in the Red Wings bullpen for a two-run round tripper three batters later. Eduardo Valencia followed that up with his own solo home run in the Rochester bullpen as well. Hao-Yu Lee capped off the big inning for Toledo with an RBI double.
Brian Serven led off the ninth inning for Toledo’s fifth long ball that went into the Mud Hens bullpen.
“You can’t make mistakes,” LeCroy said. “You have to execute your pitches because you can get them out. They have guys in that lineup that you can get out.”
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Along with the five long balls, the Rochester pitching staff gave up a combined 17 hits and walked 6 batters on Tuesday. Five Toledo players collected a multi-hit performance and every player collected at least one hit against the Red Wings staff.
“You have to go out and compete and realize you’re a pitcher and not a thrower,” LeCroy said. “We found ourselves in a lot of bad counts and didn’t execute. Not getting the shut down inning in the fifth, made a really big hole for us.”
In the first three innings of the ballgame, Rochester committed two errors that led to some of Toledo’s early runs. A misplay in left field in the first inning opened the door for the Mud Hens to take a 2-0 lead. Then a wild pickoff throw in the third led to a Mud Hens reaching third before scoring a few pitches later.
”You have to catch the ball,” LeCroy said. “Tonight we had a couple mishaps and it came back to bite us.”
Andrew Pinckney and Trey Lipscomb led the Red Wings offense as each recorded two RBI Tuesday evening. Pinckney collected two RBI base hits to score Nick Schnell in the first inning and Yohandy Morales in the third. Lipscomb collected two RBI doubles that scored Pinckney both times with them coming in the third and fifth innings.
”They were big,” LeCroy said. “Super proud of both of them in how they’ve been finishing the season up on a good note. These guys are hopefully showing what they can do at the next level.”
Pinckney also had a strong performance in center field Tuesday evening. The 24 year old caught three fly outs and threw out a runner at third in the third inning.
”He’s gotten so much better,” LeCroy said. “His read and jumps have gotten better and continue to improve. We have a metric here that we look at and his chart keeps going up. That’s a testament to his hard work.”
The Rochester Red Wings and Toledo Mud Hens continue their series on Wednesday at 6:45 p.m. as Rochester will send southpaw Andrew Alvarez (2-7, 4.12) to the mound while Toledo’s starter has yet to be announced.
Ah–team tease at it again. AFter a very good series with Syracuse, Wings pitching once again comes back down to earth.
Gotta flush this one and win the rest!