MOOSIC \u2014 One current and one former No. 1 prospect for the New York Mets doomed the Scranton\/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders on Friday night.<\/p>\n
Jonah Tong struck out nine in 4.2 innings and Ronny Mauricio had two hits and four RBIs to lead Syracuse to an 8-1 win over the RailRiders before 5,025 fans at PNC Field.<\/p>\n
Tong, the Mets\u2019 No. 1 prospect according to MLB Pipeline, allowed just one run and four hits. He threw 91 pitches, 54 for strikes.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s always really good when he\u2019s attacking the strike zone,\u201d RailRiders manager Shelley Duncan said. \u201cHe\u2019s got good stuff. He did today. Usually he has an inning here or there that things get away from him a little bit control-wise and it\u2019s led to some big innings. He didn\u2019t have that today. He was pounding the strike zone and was pretty good with most of his pitches.\u201d<\/p>\n
Three Mets relievers then finished off the five-hitter, retiring the final 12 batters they faced. The RailRiders struck out 15 times \u2014 eight swinging, seven looking \u2014 to drop to 15-8 in the second half and 52-45 overall. They remain two games behind Durham in the International League second-half standings since the Bulls also lost Friday, 7-2, to the Memphis Redbirds.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere weren\u2019t many scoring opportunities tonight,\u201d Duncan said. \u201cWe had some guys lead off an inning and get on base, which always sets you up for a good spot. We had some opportunities in scoring position, but we\u2019ve seen their best stuff this series in those spots. They\u2019re not always easy. Wish we could have scrapped and clawed one or two runs earlier. Played a little passive at the beginning. Probably should have been more aggressive on my end.\u201d<\/p>\n
Oswaldo Cabrera had two of the RailRiders\u2019 five hits. George Lombard Jr. singled in the fifth inning to extend his hitting streak to 14 games. He also walked in the first inning, extending his on-base streak to 22 games. Ernesto Martinez Jr. and J.C. Escarra had the team\u2019s other two hits.<\/p>\n
It was an uphill battle from the start as Syracuse took the lead just three batters into the game.<\/p>\n
With one out, starting pitcher Adam Kloffenstein (2-7) hit Nick Morabito with a pitch. Mauricio, a former top Mets prospect, then jumped on the first pitch and sent it 411 feet out to right-center field for his ninth home run and a quick 2-0 lead.<\/p>\n
Kloffenstein allowed two runs and two hits in four innings with four walks and five strikeouts.<\/p>\n
\u201cKloff walked four dudes in four innings, but got a couple double plays and did a good job getting out of the jams he put himself in,\u201d Duncan said. \u201cAside from giving up the two-run home run, I was proud of the effort he put in tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
The RailRiders got one of the runs back in the bottom of the second off Tong.<\/p>\n
Yanquiel Fernandez drew a leadoff walk and advanced to third on a single by Cabrera. Tyler Hardman followed with a groundout to first that scored Fernandez and sent Cabrera to second.<\/p>\n
Then, a bit of bad luck for the RailRiders as Martinez lined a single to right, but right at Morabito, forcing Cabrera to stop at third. Tong struck out Kenedy Corona and got Lombard to ground out to third to keep it 2-1.<\/p>\n
Syracuse used two three-run outbursts in the fifth and sixth innings to put the game out of reach.<\/p>\n
Some shoddy defense by the RailRiders contributed to the first three-run inning. With Chris Kean pitching, Ben Rortvedt reached when center fielder Spencer Jones lost his fly ball in the twilight for a double. Cristian Pache sacrificed Rortvedt to third and he scored on a single by Ji Hwan Bae.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere always seems to be a 10-15-minute window here where it gets tough for the outfielders and unfortunately it happened when we were out there on defense,\u201d Duncan said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t seem to last a whole inning. Somebody has to deal with it a certain half-inning of a game. Bad luck on that one, which led to a run.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bae stole second and Morabito walked. Kean then picked off Morabito, but during the ensuing rundown, Bae broke for third. Second baseman Cabrera tried to get Bae, but his throw was late and both players were safe. Kean got Mauricio to pop up for the second out, but Ryan Clifford lined a 3-2 pitch to right field to score Bae and Morabito and make it 5-1.<\/p>\n
\u201cGreat execution on the pickoff play, bad execution on the rundown,\u201d Duncan said. \u201cYou hope you at least get one out on that one. Unfortunately, we didn\u2019t execute and they advanced both guys. Kean did a great job to get Mauricio to pop up, but gave up a two-run single when he should have been out of the inning.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the sixth, three consecutive one-out singles by Christopher Morel, Rortvedt and Pache against Carson Coleman loaded the bases. Bae had an RBI groundout to score Morel. After Morabito reached on catcher\u2019s interference, Mauricio lined a long single off the right-field wall to score Rortvedt and Pache for an 8-1 lead.<\/p>\n
After Syracuse\u2019s first three-run rally, the RailRiders actually had a chance to battle back.<\/p>\n
Lombard and Escarra had back-to-back one-out singles and they moved to third and second, respectively, on a groundout to first by Jones. Marco Luciano walked to load the bases and that ended the day for Tong. Joe Jacques came on in relief and Fernandez hit an 0-1 pitch to the warning track in right-center field that held up long enough for Morabito to make the catch and end the inning.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou hate missed opportunities,\u201d Duncan said. \u201cYou hate looking back at the game and spotting them. But it happens. We\u2019ve seen this offense put up big numbers in those same spots. Sometimes you just have those days. All the mistakes we made today, the best thing we can do is learn from them and hopefully use them to make us better. Look back at this game and use it as a learning experience and one that, the final score looked like a blowout, but the way we played it, it could have been completely different.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Mets evened the six-game series, 2-2, and clinched the season series, 13-9, with two games remaining.<\/p>\n
Righthander Alexander Cornielle (1-1, 3.18 ERA) is scheduled to start for the RailRiders on Saturday, when the series continues at 6:35 p.m. Syracuse counters with righty Robert Stock (0-0, 2.25).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MOOSIC \u2014 One current and one former No. 1 prospect for the New York Mets doomed the Scranton\/Wilkes-Barre…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":251705,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[51447,178,180,179,726],"class_list":["post-251704","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\/251704","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=251704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251704\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}