IL Worcester Red Sox

Sale, Story Shine But WooSox Drop Series Finale, 9-8 in 10 Innings

August 6, 2023 - International League (IL)
Worcester Red Sox News Release


SYRACUSE, NY - Despite 4.1 shutout innings from Chris Sale and another home run from Trevor Story, the Worcester Red Sox (19-13, 58-49) saw their four-game winning streak come to an end with a 9-8 loss in 10 innings to the Syracuse Mets (11-21, 44-62) on Sunday afternoon at NBT Bank Stadium.

Trailing 8-5 in the bottom of the ninth, Syracuse tied the game with a two-out, three-run home run from Nick Meyer, and won the game in the 10th on a walk-off single by Tomas Nido.

Sale was dominant in his second rehab start of the week, scattering three singles and striking out seven batters with no walks before leaving the game with one out in the fifth. He threw 53 pitches (38 strikes), and his fastball sat between 91 and 93 miles per hour. Sale started the day on a high note by punching out four of the first five hitters he faced, and finished the outing by striking out three of his final five batters.

He left the game with a 5-0 lead thanks to another powerful performance from the WooSox offense, sparked by a two-run home run from Red Sox rehabber Trevor Story on the fourth pitch of the afternoon. David Hamilton greeted Justin Jarvis with a leadoff single to right center in the top of the first, and Story followed with a 418-foot home run to the base of the left field video board. He waited back on an 0-1 breaking ball, and bludgeoned it at 107 miles per hour for his third homer with Worcester.

Story stuffed the stat sheet on Sunday, finishing 2-for-3 with a home run, a double, and two walks. He's now 10-for-32 (.313) with the WooSox, delivering four doubles, three homers, six RBIs, and five walks in 10 games.

Worcester extended the lead to 4-0 in the second with the help of two errors. Ryan Fitzgerald led off the inning and crushed a pitch to the wall in right center, but it clanged off the glove of a sprinting Joe Suozzi's and was ruled an E9. Ronaldo Hernandez singled to put runners on the corners, and both scored on a throwing error from Meyer. Syracuse's first baseman gloved a grounder from Niko Kavadas, but airmailed his throw to second base that wound up in left center and plated a pair.

Bobby Dalbec launched his second home run of the week, and 27th of the season, to make it 5-0 in the third. Jarvis tried to plant a 1-1 slider on the outside corner, but Dalbec mashed it 401 feet out to the vegetation beyond Syracuse's left field wall. He is now two dingers shy of league-leader Luken Baker (29), who has homered four times for the Memphis Redbirds this week.

Worcester answered a Suozzi homer with an RBI infield single from Ceddanne Rafaela in the sixth to establish a 6-1 lead, but a Brandon McIlwain grand slam brought Syracuse back within a run heading to the seventh.

With the advantage trimmed to 6-5, Hernandez gave Worcester a little more breathing room in the seventh inning with his 14th home run of the season. His heavy, powerful swing turned on a William Woods cutter and sent it skyward to left. The towering blast eventually bounced off the roof of a group hospitality area 385 feet from home plate.

Rafaela missed an eighth inning home run by a matter of feet, slamming an RBI double off the top half of the right field wall in the eighth. His WooSox-record five-game homer streak came to an end, but he went 3-for-5 and raised his Triple-A average to .328 in 31 games.

Hernandez and Rafaela had padded Worcester's lead to 8-5 heading to the ninth, but following a pair of singles, Meyer got a hold of first-pitch curveball from Chase Shugart (BS, 3) and tied the game with a three-run homer to left.

After Dennis Santana (W, 5-3) stranded the automatic runner at second base in the top of the 10th, Syracuse bunted Abraham Almonte to third and brought him in on Nido's single to win the game. It was the Mets' 17th home win of the season, and their seventh walk-off.

Worcester settled for a 4-2 series win in Syracuse, highlighted by an eye-popping 21 home runs in six games, which leads all of baseball in the month of August.

Each of the last five WooSox losses have been one-run defeats, including four games in which Worcester held a lead in the ninth inning.

The WooSox begin a 13-game homestand at Polar Park on Tuesday, welcoming in the Buffalo Bisons for seven games in six days (including a doubleheader on Friday). With each team just one game back of first place Lehigh Valley, the winner of next week's series could very well find themselves atop the second-half standings. Tuesday's series opener is scheduled to start at 6:45 p.m.

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International League Stories from August 6, 2023


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