Although they managed only four hits, the Scranton\/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders capitalized on eight walks and seven stolen bases to hold off the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp, 6-5, in the opener of the final series of the regular season Tuesday night at PNC Field in Moosic.<\/p>\n
The win, coupled with Rochester\u2019s 9-8 loss in Buffalo, pulls the RailRiders (39-29) within one game of the Red Wings (41-29) and Indianapolis (41-29) in the International League second-half standings. The Indians also won Tuesday, 8-6 in 10 innings over Gwinnett, to move into a first-place tie. Syracuse (39-30) was victorious over Lehigh Valley and is 1.5 games back. Worcester (38-30) defeated Durham and is two games back. Five games remain in the regular season.<\/p>\n
Elmer Rodriguez started for the RailRiders. Last time he faced Jacksonville was in the decisive Game 3 of last year\u2019s International League championship series \u2014 his second Triple-A start \u2014 and he allowed five runs on four hits in 0.2 innings with two walks and two strikeouts. The Jumbo Shrimp won, 7-4, to take the series and the title.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, Rodriguez allowed two runs (one earned) on three hits in 4.2 innings with five walks and three strikeouts. Zach Messinger (9-1) followed and tossed 2.1 innings of scoreless and hitless relief with one walk and three strikeouts to get the win.<\/p>\n
Jacksonville took a 1-0 lead in the top of the second when Juan Matheus\u2019 sacrifice fly scored Kemp Alderman.<\/p>\n
But the RailRiders (76-66 overall) answered in the bottom of the second. With one out, Oswaldo Cabrera walked and Max Schuemann was hit by a pitch. With two outs, Cabrera and Schuemann executed a double steal. Duke Ellis followed with a two-run single to give the RailRiders a 2-1 lead. The hit extended Ellis\u2019 hitting streak to 12 games.<\/p>\n
Without the benefit of a hit in the bottom of the third, the RailRiders extended the lead. Jasson Dominguez led off with a walk. One out later, Marco Luciano walked. With Yanquiel Fernandez batting, Dominguez and Luciano pulled off a double steal. When the catcher\u2019s throw to third went into left field for an error, Dominguez scored and Luciano advanced to third. He then scored on a wild pitch to make it 4-1.<\/p>\n
Ellis swiped three bases in the game, extending his franchise single-season mark to 55.<\/p>\n
A wild pitch in the top of the fifth inning enabled Johnny Olmstead to score and pull the Jumbo Shrimp within 4-2. It stayed that way until the bottom of the seventh when Ellis reached on a fielder\u2019s choice. He stole second and third and scored on a wild pitch for a 5-2 advantage.<\/p>\n
Brandon Compton\u2019s RBI groundout off Yerry De Los Santos in the top of the eighth cut the Jacksonville deficit to 5-3. Consecutive one-out doubles in the bottom of the eighth by Schuemann and Ernesto Martinez Jr. restored the RailRiders\u2019 advantage back to three runs.<\/p>\n
It was needed since, in the top of the ninth, Matheus reached on an error and Logan Driscoll hit a two-run home run to bring the Jumbo Shrimp within 6-5. But Chris Kean retired the next three batters to earn the save and secure the victory.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday afternoon at 1:05, the series continues with Brendan Beck on the mound for the RailRiders against Jacksonville lefthander Luis Palacios.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Although they managed only four hits, the Scranton\/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders capitalized on eight walks and seven stolen bases to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":287112,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[51447,178,180,179,726],"class_list":["post-287111","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\/287111","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=287111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/287112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}