{"id":194071,"date":"2026-05-16T07:35:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T07:35:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/194071\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T07:35:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T07:35:12","slug":"swb-railriders-thornton-helps-pitch-syracuse-to-victory-wilkes-barre-citizens-voice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/194071\/","title":{"rendered":"SWB RAILRIDERS: Thornton helps pitch Syracuse to victory \u2013 Wilkes-Barre Citizens’ Voice"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"RailRiders\u2019<\/p>\n

RailRiders\u2019 Ali Sanchez bats during the RailRiders game against Syracuse at PNC Field in Moosic on Friday, May 15, 2026. (REBECCA PARTICKA\/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)\n<\/p>\n

\"RailRiders\u2019<\/p>\n

RailRiders\u2019 Dom Hamel pitches during the game against Syracuse at PNC Field in Moosic on Friday, May 15, 2026. (REBECCA PARTICKA\/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)\n<\/p>\n

\"RailRiders\u2019<\/p>\n

RailRiders\u2019 Marco Luciano fields the ball during the game against Syracuse at PNC field in Moosic on Friday, May 15, 2026. (REBECCA PARTICKA\/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)\n<\/p>\n

\"RailRiders\u2019<\/p>\n

RailRiders\u2019 Jonathan Ornelas throws the ball in from left field during the game against Syracuse at PNC field in Moosic on Friday, May 15, 2026. (REBECCA PARTICKA\/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)\n<\/p>\n

\"Syracuse<\/p>\n

Syracuse Mets\u2019 Nick Morabito bats during the RailRiders game at PNC field in Moosic on Friday, May 15, 2026. (REBECCA PARTICKA\/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)\n<\/p>\n

\"RailRiders\u2019<\/p>\n

RailRiders\u2019 Oswaldo Cabrera high fives Little Leaguers before the game against Syracuse at PNC field in Moosic on Friday, May 15, 2026. (REBECCA PARTICKA\/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)\n<\/p>\n

Show Caption<\/p>\n

1 of 6<\/p>\n

RailRiders\u2019 Ali Sanchez bats during the RailRiders game against Syracuse at PNC Field in Moosic on Friday, May 15, 2026. (REBECCA PARTICKA\/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)\n<\/p>\n

Expand<\/a><\/p>\n

One night after hitting five home runs, the Scranton\/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders had their bats quieted by Syracuse pitcher Zach Thornton.<\/p>\n

The righthander who is the New York Mets\u2019 No. 13 prospect threw six shutout innings as Syracuse downed the RailRiders, 8-2, on Friday night at PNC Field in Moosic.<\/p>\n

Thornton allowed three hits, walked one and struck out nine. His teammates backed that performance with plenty of offense.<\/p>\n

Yonny Hernandez put the Mets on the board with a one-out home run to right field off RailRiders starter Dom Hamel. Cristian Pache followed with a single. Former RailRider Ben Rortvedt hit a sinking line drive to left for a single and when the ball got past a diving Jonathan Ornelas for an error, Pache scored and Rortvedt went to third. Nick Morabito\u2019s two-out single plated Rortvedt and gave Syracuse a 3-0 lead.<\/p>\n

Pache homered with one out in the fourth to extend the margin to 4-0.<\/p>\n

Syracuse then broke the game open with four runs in the top of the seventh. Harrison Cohen relieved Hamel and was greeted by a home run from Rortvedt. Later in the inning, Christian Arroyo had a RBI single. After Bradley Hanner relieved Cohen, two more runs scored on a throwing error by George Lombard Jr. to give the Mets an 8-0 advantage.<\/p>\n

In the bottom of the eighth, with Thornton out of the game, the RailRiders (22-19) finally broke through against the Syracuse bullpen. Ali Sanchez drew a leadoff walk against Luke Jackson and took second on a wild pitch. One out later, Kenedy Corona walked. Mike Baumann replaced Jackson and walked Lombard to load the bases for Oswaldo Cabrera, who singled to score two runs.<\/p>\n

A.J. Minter, who is on a MLB rehab assignment, pitched a perfect ninth with one strikeout to close out the Syracuse victory.<\/p>\n

On Saturday night, the series is scheduled to continue with Gerrit Cole of the New York Yankees making a rehab start for the RailRiders. It concludes Sunday at 1:35 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RailRiders\u2019 Ali Sanchez bats during the RailRiders game against Syracuse at PNC Field in Moosic on Friday, May…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":194072,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[51447,178,180,179,726],"class_list":["post-194071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-rail-riders","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}