BY DAN GLICKMAN
ROCHESTER, N.Y. – Entering Sunday, the Rochester Red Wings found themselves facing a simple scenario: Win, and they’d win the International League’s first half on its final day. Lose, and they’d need the Nashville Sounds to beat the Memphis Redbirds in order to clinch the title.
It was not to be. The Toledo Mud Hens used “hit them where they ain’t” bloops and mighty blasts to beat the Red Wings, 9-6, while in Memphis the RedBirds battered the Nashville Sounds early and then held on late, 10-8, to clinch the first half for Memphis (47-28) and eliminate the Red Wings (45-28, one game back).
Down 5-0, the Red Wings began a comeback in the fourth, as Andrew Pinckney and Riley Adams went back-to-back with solo home runs, but that would ultimately be the extent of scoring for the Red Wings until Philip Glasser hit a bases-loaded three-run double in the eighth to make it 9-5. Rochester would later move a little closer with a solo home run with two outs in the ninth by Trey Lipscomb, but it was too little, too late, as the Red Wings could never make up the deficit.
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“We just didn’t get what we needed; we needed to put some zeros up today, and we didn’t in the bullpen,” said Red Wings manager Matt LeCroy. “You know how baseball goes, and you have to tip your cap to Toledo. They played us well all series, they got a good lineup and made us pay for our mistakes. Now we’ve got to turn the page and hopefully get the second half.”
Rochester had opportunities: even before the two home runs, the Red Wings had two men on in the second and third only to fail to score. Two runners were stranded in the seventh, as well. Even the rally in the eighth ended with two runners on base.
Rochester had to work almost the entire game from behind, and never could quite come back.
Taking the mound initially for Rochester was Jackson Kent, the 23-year-old left-hander in his first season of AAA baseball. The Arizona alum began the game well, striking out leadoff man Ben Malgeri and then MLB.com Pipeline No. 7 overall prospect Max Clark before getting Eduardo Valencia to ground out to Brady House at third.
The second inning, however, brought some trouble, as Max Anderson led off the inning with an infield single. Corey Julks followed by hitting a ball towards second, and while Yohandy Morales was able to get the ball to second to get the lead runner, a bobble at first prevented a double-play. Jace Jung followed with another infield single, and then Tyler Gentry singled up the middle to score the opening run and give the Mud Hens an early 1-0 lead.
Toledo’s shortstop and number nine hitter, Andrew Navigato, who had homered against Kent in the series opener on Tuesday, continued to menace the starter, getting a bases-loaded grounder through the left side to score two more, expanding the Toledo lead to 3-0. Toledo would later add a further two runs against Kent with a two-run shot by Anderson in the third to extend the lead to 5-0.
Although the two solo home runs in the fourth cut the lead to 5-2, Toledo kept up the pressure: Gentry singled in a run in the sixth off Luke Young to extend the lead to 6-2, and then Clark hit a two-run home run in the seventh to further the Mud Hen lead to 8-2. A sacrifice fly by Eduardo Valencia in the eighth brought the score to 9-2.
With the Red Wings failing to hold back the Toledo offense and unable to fully capitalize during their own time at the plate, the deficit could never be made up.
“They just didn’t miss,” said Lecroy of Toledo. “They didn’t miss any balls that we missed. They didn’t necessarily hit it hard, but they put on some really good swings that got through the infield. They just took advantage of our mistakes.”
Even with the defeat, the Red Wings still had a chance of clinching the first half if the Memphis Redbirds lost. However, that hope faded fast, as the Redbirds jumped to a 5-0 lead in the first inning against Nashville, powered by a three-run home run from Cardinals prospect Joshua Baez, who has hit 25 this season and who is considered one of the favorites for International League MVP. By the fifth inning, Memphis led 10-1. Although Nashville tried to come back behind three home runs by Luke Adams, they came up short in the 10-8 loss, eliminating Rochester.
The missed playoff berth extends the Red Wings’ playoff drought for at least another half-season. The 2013 Rochester Red Wings, the last Wings squad to make the playoffs, went 77-67 en route to a wild card spot, only to lose to the Pawtucket Red Sox in the International League semifinals, 3-2, in a five-game series. The Red Wings made runs for playoff spots in 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017, but they were unable to clinch a spot. At times, they came agonizingly close: in 2016, the Red Wings had one of the best records in the league, but missed the playoffs even while a sub-.500 Gwinnett Braves squad made it by winning a South Division that had a historically weak year. Then, in 2017, the Red Wings finished in a tie for a wild card spot with Lehigh Valley, only to lose on tiebreakers. The introduction of a split-season schedule has made it more difficult to earn a playoff spot, reducing the number of available spots from four to two and making it possible for a team to have the league’s best record and still fail to make the playoffs.
The Red Wings haven’t won the International League title since 1997, when Marv Foley‘s team of Orioles prospects beat Columbus in the Governors’ Cup Championship Series. They haven’t made the International League championship series since 2006, when Stan Cliburn‘s squad fell to Toledo in the Governors’ Cup. That Toledo team was led by Mike Hessman – now the hitting coach for this year’s Wings-eliminating Mud Hens incarnation.
After Sunday’s events, 2013 will remain the most recent time the Red Wings made the playoffs – unless, of course, the Red Wings win the second half. It’s certainly possible: the Wings have more depth than any previous squad in the Nationals era, and eight of the Washington Nationals’ top 30 prospects according to MLB.com Pipeline are in AA Harrisburg and may make the leap to AAA in the upcoming months, although the two most prominent – pitchers Travis Sykora (No. 2) and Jarlin Susana (No. 3) – have dealt with injury concerns throughout the year.
“My message on Tuesday to them will be that we got a chance to win the second half, go out and play as hard as you can, and compete,” said LeCroy. “We’ve got a great club, we have a playoff club where we’re 17 games over .500, which is pretty special.”
Whether the great play of the first half will continue is a question that will have to wait until the weeks and months ahead. However,some clues may emerge in the second half’s first series, at Charlotte. The Knights were one of the best teams in the IL East in the first half, with a 42-33 record that had them third in the division. A high-powered offense, the Knights had the best run differential in the first half, scoring 95 more runs than they gave up.
For his part, Lecroy believes in his team.
“I feel pretty good about our team matching up with everybody’s team,” he says.
The Red Wings begin their series against the Knights at 7:04 p.m. on Tuesday. The Red Wings expect to start an “opener” before Luis Perales takes over as the so-called “bulk” pitcher.
The Wings could also get in if Memphis wins the second half—and the Wings have the next best overall record. I’m not sure I like split season baseball, but it is what it is.
Thank you for great coverage and playoff sceniro possibilities for the Wings.
Today not sure I’m angry or sad. Yesterdays game was awful. Some might not agree with that, but we had every chance to win the 1st half and to a man, the team played poorly from the get-go. They were out managed too (again some will disagree). LeCroy;s use of his pitching staff throughout the series was not good. And yesterday, when you pull out all the stops for ONE GAME, he left a struggling starter in too long when it was obvious he was getting hit hard; then he took Yean out after only 26 pitches in 2 brilliant innings, when he needed someone to shut down Toledo. Two games ago, he brought in a rookie who had never pitched in AAA, in a one run game in the 7th inning and the kid cracked under the pressure.
These games are not the ‘usual’ regular season games. You manage to win at all costs. There are 75 more to play that are less meaningful. The bullpen outside of Yean was terrible.
Also, our two slugging stars had miserable days. Morales and Ortiz left a ton of men on base going 0-8 with 3 k’s and a couple of weak foul outs. In the 2nd inning a missed double play opened the way for 3 Toledo runs and the game was essentially over.
It was painful to watch 1st place go down the drain like that. It was an awful performance. Toledo was ‘begging’ the Wings right handed batters to hit the ball to left field. The left fielder was playing practically in center the whole game, yet the there was exactly ONE ball hit to left the entire game….a meaningless 2 outs in the 9th solo HR.
We feared winning 14-1 was not going to be a good thing and it sure wasn’t. Insult to injury Nashville, after winning 17-3 also suffered the same fate. Down 10-1, they nearly came back, but didn’t.
One day perhaps we will get to write a happy story about a team that actually succeeded in achieving their goal here in Rochester. But on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, the Red Wings managed to fail at everything, when it mattered most.
Again, angry or sad? As a long time fan, for me angry wins out. I expected better.
It was a terrible baseball game. No sugar coating. No tip of hats.