BY DAN GLICKMAN
A day after dropping a 4-3 game, the Rochester Red Wings (30-20 in the second half, 75-48 overall) returned to the win column with a 7-2 victory over the Omaha Storm Chasers (24-24 in the second half, 57-65 overall) on Saturday in Nebraska.
The win keeps the Red Wings a half-game back of the Durham Bulls in the International League second-half standings. It also gives them the series win in Omaha, their 14th series victory this season.
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Rochester jumped to an early lead with a two-out rally in the first, as Yohandy Morales singled to left. Trey Lipscomb continued his hot streak and extended his team home run leader next, getting ahold of a 1-0 fastball from Hunter Patteson and rocketing it at 105.6 MPH over the left-center field fence to put the Red Wings ahead, 2-0. The shot also extended the Marylander’s hit streak to 18 games. Riley Adams followed with a single, and then came around to score when Cayden Wallace doubled and left fielder Brett Squires made an error.
The score would remain 3-0 until the the sixth, when Omaha loaded the bases with out out and then brought a runner home on a groundout by Peyton Wilson. Rochester pitcher Justin Lawrence then hit the next batter, Josh Rojas, with a pitch, loading the bases once again. However, Lawrence escaped the inning by striking out Jacob Berry, preserving the 3-1 lead.
Omaha again threatened in the bottom of the seventh, scoring their second run on a sacrifice fly by Carson Roccaforte and getting the tying run to third, only for Kyle Nicolas to strike out Abraham Toro looking to end the inning.
Rochester used the eighth and ninth to build up insurance, with Cayden Wallace singling in Morales to make it 4-2 in the eighth and then Liover Peguero doubling to extend the lead to 6-2. An Adams single in the ninth brought about the 7-2 score.
A total of eight Red Wings pitchers took the mound on yet another bullpen day for the squad, with Matt Krook going two hitless innings as the opener before being relieved by Paxton Schultz, who went two innings and allowed one hit while striking out three and earning the win to move to 1-0 in AAA on the year. Eddy Yean and Gus Varland threw perfect eighth and ninth innings, respectively.
The Red Wings complete their series at Werner Park in Nebraska on Sunday, when they face Omaha at 6:05 P.M. Jared Simpson is expected to be the first Red Wing to toe the mound, while Omaha turns to right-hander Vince Velasquez, an MLB veteran of 193 games.
By the time the Wings start their game on Sunday, all the other teams that they are competing with will have finished playing, so Wings will know what they need to do! Winning the series 5-1 is preferable for sure. Every win now is important with 25 to play. And for the other division tiebreakers (and Durham) assuming everyone plays the full schedule, the team record over the final 20 games looms large. (A strange way to break ties in the standings)
If Wings can go 15-10 they will finish with 90 wins. But 15-10 probably won’t be good enough to finish 1st. They have 12 more games with Buffalo, a team they haven’t matched up well with this season. No opponent will be easy. And if Washington steals a couple more players the job will be even tougher.