BY DAN GLICKMAN
ROCHESTER, N.Y. – The Rochester Red Wings appeared done. They were down 7-1 to the Syracuse Mets after a disastrous third inning. At one point, the website Baseball Savant gave them only a 5% chance of winning.
Except they weren’t done, and that percentage wasn’t zero. They used the long-ball to scrape their way back to tie it, 7-7, with the tying runs coming off a two-run homer from Yohandy Morales in the seventh. And then, when they fell behind 8-7, “Yoyo” tied it up again with two outs in the bottom of the ninth to tie the game again, forcing extra innings. There, pitcher Luke Young worked two shutout innings until Phillip Glasser sent the crowd home happy in the 11th with a single to right.
“This team is never done,” said Morales post-game. “We’ve got a lot of hitters, and pitchers that held us close after that seven-run inning, so our team was never out. We’re never done, we’re never down.”
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The win put the Red Wings (33-21) back into first place in the International League’s first half, a half-game over Memphis and Nashville. The win also extended their lead in the International League East to 3.5 games over Jacksonville, although a division title would not mean a playoff berth – only having the best record in the league in the half would do so.
Young, a 24-year-old right-handed Texan making his seventh appearance in AAA, moved to 2-0 on the year in relief, throwing two hitless innings while striking out two, twice working his way around the “Ghost Runner” that starts every extra inning at second. Although Young was unavailable for comment post-game, his skipper made sure to give him kudos.
“What an outing, to keep them off the scoreboard in extras,” said Red Wings manager Matt LeCroy. “He made some really good pitches, he executed his breaking ball, his slider, his fastball was up to 97… he kept us in the ball game. He gave us a shot.”
After failing to get the knockout blow in the bottom of the tenth, the Red Wings were able to take another shot in eleventh. Riley Adams, a catcher brought in to replace Tres Barrera after he was pinch-hit for by Brady House earlier in the game, was at second. Not well-known for his base-running, the Mets tried to catch him off second after a failed bunt by Christian Franklin. At first, it looked like they’d get him, but the throw from Mets’ catcher Kevin Parada went wide and into the outfield, allowing Adams to move to third. Franklin walked, Harry Ford struck out, and then Alex Carillo intentionally walked Morales to load the bases but set up forces at every base.
Up to bat came Glasser, who hadn’t started the game but instead had been brought in earlier as a pinch-runner for Abimelec Ortiz in the ninth. Although he hadn’t been expecting to see any at-bats on Friday, he’d prepared as if he were.
“I pretend I’m starting every day,” he said. “I make it so my body’s in the same routine, just in case you have to get in.”
He made the most of it, taking a strike and fouling off two pitches before catching a Carrillo slider in and putting it into left, bringing in Adams for the win.
“I’m super-proud of all of them,” said LeCroy.
An increasingly-rare over-three-hour game, the night began with the Red Wings looking to bounce back after their first loss after a 10-game winning streak. The team had turned to a young left-hander named Jackson Kent, who’d impressed in his first AAA start on May 23, throwing five innings without allowing an earned run on three hits against Worcester.
For the first two innings, it looked like Kent, the No. 15 prospect in the Nationals’ system according to MLB.com Pipeline, would continue his early International League success. He sent down the first six hitters he faced, striking out three of them. The Red Wings, meanwhile, jumped ahead in the bottom of the first when Morales doubled to left before being brought home by an Ortiz single.
But then came the top of the third, an ugly inning where 11 batters came to the plate and seven Mets came around to score, culminating in back-to-back home runs from Christian Arroyo and Ryan Clifford.
Down 7-1, the Red Wings then had to begin the long road back into contention, even as five relievers combined to hold the Mets to just one run the rest of the way.
“We [knew] we could do it, swing the bat,” said Morales. “We’d just take it one inning at a time, chip away, which we did.”
It started in the bottom of the third, just minutes after the Mets had completed their seven-run onslaught. After an Ortiz single with two outs, Andrew Pinckney stepped to the plate against Xzavion Curry and jumped completely on a 2-1 fastball in, smoking it over the left-field fence and into the line scoreboard that hangs above the visitor bullpen. It was his seventh home run of the season and part of a two-hit night for Pinckney, and it cut the Mets lead to 7-3.
Pinckney’s home run was also superlative shot, one of the hardest hit in the history of Statcast tracking. Reaching an escape velocity of 119 MPH, the homer was the hardest-hit long ball of the season so far in any league in North American baseball that has the Statcast tracking system and believed to be the hardest ever at the AAA record in the three years since Statcast became common at the level. For point of comparison, the hardest-hit home run in MLB history on Statcast tracking was a 122.9 MPH exit velocity shot from Oneil Cruz of the Pirates in 2025.
It’d be Trey Lipscomb who moved the Red Wings even closer in the fourth inning. After Robert Hassell III had doubled, Lipscomb smacked his 10th home run of the year by golfing a hanging curveball 361 feet over the left-field fence. Now, it was 7-5. Lipscomb ultimately ended the night 3-for-5 with two RBI, finishing a triple short of the cycle.
Then, finally, in the seventh, it was Morales’ turn – his first, anyway. After a Ford walk, he deposited a Jonathan Pintaro changeup into the Red Wings’ bullpen in right, his 11th home run of the season. From 7-1, the Red Wings had scored six unanswered to tie it.
Syracuse, however, soon reclaimed the lead, as Ji Hwan Bae singled against Zak Kent before stealing second and coming in on a double by Parada. After a Jackson Cluff walk, Eddy Yean came in to pitch and was able to coax a double play to end the inning and keep it a one-run game.
It looked like that one run would be all that Syracuse would need to win, however, as the Red Wings failed to score in the eighth and soon had two outs against them in the ninth. That was until Dylan Ross hung a 1-0 slider up for Morales, who launched it at 110 MPH over the center field wall as the crowd of 6,807 went wild.
“I was just trying to get on base,” said Morales.
He did more than that. He helped complete another Red Wings comeback- setting the stage for the eventual extra innings victory.
Through his time with as Red Wings manager, Matt LeCroy has talked about the fight his teams have. Even during years where the win-loss record hasn’t been good, he’s often talked up about their ability to stage comebacks. Friday’s win, however, made him reflect on what may be making this year different:
“The last three or four teams, the people that we had here, the way they worked, the way they played… I think the kids that we had here last year battled all year long,” said LeCroy. “We had a tough year [last season], but now we can compete more on the mound, and we have a chance every night to win. Tonight was an example of battling, grinding, never ever out of it, and they ended up pushing one across there late.”
In other words: they were never done. Not on Friday, and perhaps not in any game this season.
The Rochester victory ensures the Wings will at least split the six-game series. The Red Wings and Mets continue their series on Saturday with a 6:45 p.m. game. Syracuse is expected to send out right-hander Jack Wenninger (3-2, 2.20), while the Red Wings have righty Luis Perales (1-4, 3.31) set to go.
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