It all comes down to this.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, the Scranton \/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders open their final series of the regular season \u2014 a six-game set against the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp \u2014 with a berth in the International League championship series at stake.<\/p>\n
The RailRiders (38-29 second half, 75-66 overall) are two games behind the Rochester Red Wings (Nationals) in the race for the International League second half title, with the Indianapolis Indians (Pirates) between the two teams just one game out of first place.<\/p>\n
Memphis (Cardinals) was the first-half winner, and will host the second-half winner in a three-game league championship series, starting Tuesday, Sept. 22. The winner advances to play the Pacific Coast League champion in the Triple-A National Championship Game on Saturday, Sept. 26, at Las Vegas Ballpark.<\/p>\n
In the Pacific Coast League, the Oklahoma City Comets (Dodgers) lead the Sugar Land Space Cowboys (Astros) by four games with six to play in the second-half standings. The Las Vegas Aviators (Athletics) were the first-half champs. The PCL championships series also begins Tuesday, Sept. 22.<\/p>\n
The Jumbo Shrimp (29-39, 71-71) are the Tampa Rays top minor league club and have lost six of their last 10.<\/p>\n
Left-handed hitting outfielder Matthew Etzel leads the Jumbo Shrimp with 19 home runs and 62 RBIs, to go with 22 stolen bases. Also, right-handed outfielder Kemp Alderman has 18 home runs and 60 RBIs.<\/p>\n
The Jumbo Shrimp have the IL\u2019s third-lowest batting average at.238, but are second in the IL with 244 stolen bases.<\/p>\n
On the mound, Jacksonville pitchers wracked up 1,332 strikeouts this season, second best in the league, while holding opponents to a .237 batting average.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the RailRiders are led by left-handed swinging Yanquiel Fernandez, who has 26 home runs, 20 doubles and 85 RBIs. Also, Oswaldo Cabrera has 19 HRs and is batting .289, Marco Luciano has 16 HRs and 50 RBIs and catcher J.C. Escarra is batting .298 while Duke Ellis is second in the IL with 52 stolen bases.<\/p>\n
Leading the RailRiders pitching staff is right-hander Brendan Beck is 10-2 with a 2.75 ERA and a 146-39 strikeout-to-walk ratio. Opposing batters are hitting just .208 against him. Also, RHP Elmer Rodriguez (8-4, 2.48) has 102 strikeouts in 101.2 innings pitched, but is 0-3 with a 5.40 ERA in his last seven outings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It all comes down to this. On Tuesday, the Scranton \/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders open their final series of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":286098,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[51447,178,180,179,726],"class_list":["post-286097","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\/286097","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=286097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286097\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}