IL1 Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders

SWB Game Notes

Published on June 16, 2019 under International League (IL1)
Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders News Release


SCRANTON/WILKES-BARRE RAILRIDERS (38-28) @ DURHAM BULLS (42-36)

RHP Chance Adams (4-1, 3.31) vs. RHP Cole Sulser (3-2, 4.56)

| Game No. 67 | Durham Bulls Athletic Park | Durham, NC | June 16, 2019 | First Pitch 5:05 p.m. |

DURHAM, NC (June 15, 2019) -- The Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders lost their second straight to the Durham Bulls and their third straight overall, falling 2-0 Saturday in front of a sellout crowd at Durham Bulls Athletic Park. A capacity crowd of 12,000 watched five Bulls pitchers blank the RailRiders on two hits and two walks.

Raynel Espinal and two Durham arms battled over the first six innings. Jake Cronenworth, who played short on Friday and was a single shy of the cycle, got the start Saturday. The right-hander induced a groundout from Aaron Judge and struck out Giancarlo Stanton before allowing a hit and a walk. Cronenworth closed the first inning with a groundout.

Brendan McKay took over for the Bulls in the second and allowed a leadoff double to Trey Amburgey; the last RailRiders hit of the game.

Espinal struck out two in the first and two in the second before Durham tallied the first run. The Bulls took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the third. Nathan Lukes singled and advanced to second on an errant pick-off throw. After a flyout advanced the runner to third, Kean Wong singled to left, driving in Lukes for the early advantage.

Durham added a solo home run in the seventh. Michael Perez lined a 1-1 pitch from reliever Stephen Tarpley into the right field stands as the Bulls doubled their lead to 2-0.

Espinal (3-5) worked six complete innings with a career-best nine strikeouts, allowing one run, unearned, on four hits. McKay (3-0) pitched five shutout frames with seven strikeouts and allowed just the one hit and one walk. Mike Franco and Vidal Nuno combined for two scoreless innings of relief for Durham before Ian Gibaut pitched a 1-2-3 ninth for his second save.

Judge and Stanton, playing their second games with Scranton/Wilkes-Barre on Allied Integrated Health Systems rehab assignments, each went 0-for-4 Saturday.

SHUTOUTS: For just the second time all season, the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders were shutout Saturday night in front of a Durham Bulls Athletic Park record crowd of 12,000 fans. Five pitchers- including one of the top prospects in the Tampa Bay Rays system, Brendan McKay- combined to hold the RailRiders to a season-low two hits in the effort. The only other game this season in which the RailRiders had been shutout was Game 2 of a doubleheader May 17th @ Toledo in a 5-0 loss. In the 18 innings played in Durham so far this weekend, the team is 10-for-63 (.159 AVG) with 2 2B and a HR (.238 SLG) with the three runs scored coming on just one swing from Giancarlo Stanton in the 3rd inning Friday night.

RAILREHABBERS: It was announced early Friday afternoon that OF Giancarlo Stanton and OF Aaron Judge are both rehabbing with the RailRiders and in the lineup beginning Friday night. In three rehab games this season with the Tampa Tarpons- including two earlier this week- Stanton had gone 5-for-10 with 4 HR, 5 RBI and 3 K before homering in his second at-bat Friday night. It was outlined by Aaron Boone that Stanton is expected to complete his rehab assignment and rejoin the Yankees Tuesday. Judge, recovering from a strained oblique, had not yet played in a rehab game before going 0-for-4 with 3 K Friday night in the first game on his road to recovery that will likely overlap with the start of the RailRiders homestand at PNC Field. Stanton and Judge join INF Didi Gregorius and OF Aaron Hicks on the list of Yankees rehabbers for the RailRiders this season. A year ago, SWB had 10 different Yankees play games with them: Greg Bird (INF), A.J. Cole (P), Brandon Drury (INF), Clint Frazier (OF), Aaron Hicks (OF), Tommy Kahnle (P), Billy McKinney (OF), Gary Sanchez (C), Masahiro Tanaka (P), Adam Warren (P).

HIT STREAKS/ON-BASE STREAKS: With his 1-for-4 performance Thursday, INF/OF Ryan McBroom has extended his hitting streak to 11 games (15-for-35, .429 AVG) and his on-base streak to 20 games before his streak came to an end Friday night. It is the fourth hitting streak of 10+ games this season for the RailRiders with Breyvic Valera's 14-game streak from 5/23 - 6/7 (24-for-52, .462 AVG) the longest. It is also the second hitting streak of 11 games for McBroom this year, where he hit in 11 straight games 4/27 - 5/14 (19-for-48, .396 AVG). A season ago, only OF Zack Zehner had a hit streak of 10 games, a 10-game streak from 8/16/2018 - 8/26/2018. McBroom's 20-game on-base streak is also the fourth such streak this year by a RailRider, and a season ago the only streak longer than 20 games was INF Brandon Drury's franchise record 32-game streak -- that streak was the longest by anyone in the International League last season.

POWER STEERING: INF Mike Ford has shown off a number of hitting tools this season for the RailRiders, prompting his MLB debut earlier in the year. One thing that has taken a big step forward has been his power totals. With a home run in Wednesday's win over the Norfolk Tides, Ford matched his season total from all of last year -- 2019: 42G, 152 AB, 15 HR (10.1 AB/HR) // 2018: 102G, 367 AB, 15 HR (24.5 AB/HR).

HIGH-WATER MARK: The RailRiders knocked off the Norfolk Tides 7-6 Wednesday night to improve to 38-25 (.603) and stay percentage points ahead of the Durham Bulls (39-26, .600) for the best record in the league. The RailRiders enter the second game of the weekend series in Durham by trailing the Bulls by a half game in the overall IL Standings. The RailRiders have dropped three consecutive games since getting to the season-best 13 games above .500.

Check out the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders Statistics

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International League Stories from June 16, 2019


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