IL1 Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders

SWB Game Notes

Published on July 28, 2019 under International League (IL1)
Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders News Release


SCRANTON/WILKES-BARRE RAILRIDERS (60-45) @ LOUISVILLE BATS (42-63)

RHP Chance Adams (4-2, 4.26) vs. RHP Jesus Reyes (0-4, 5.66)

| Game No. 106 | Louisville Slugger Field | Louisville, KY | July 28, 2019 | First Pitch 2:00 p.m. |

LOUISVILLE, KY (July 26, 2019) -- For a second straight day, the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders' bats were held in check by the Louisville Bats, losing 8-1 Saturday night.

Playing as the Mashers to honor their local bourbon culture, at times the Louisville offense looked every bit the part of their namesake. The Bats homered twice more against the RailRiders Saturday night and have homered 15 times in five games against the RailRiders this season. In the 100 games against all other teams in the International League this season, the SWB pitching staff has allowed just 111 homers and has been one of the best in the league at negating home runs.

It was two runs in the first inning, another in the second inning for the Bats as they creeped out to a 3-0 lead off RailRiders starting pitcher Daniel Camarena. The score remained the same until the bottom of the fifth inning when Louisville put a big wedge between themselves and the RailRiders using a four-run frame to make it a 7-0 advantage. They added a run in the sixth inning to extend the lead to 8-0 which was all the offense they needed for the victory. Scranton/Wilkes-Barre needed just one arm out of its bullpen, thanks to a dominating performance by Brady Lail. He entered out of the bullpen with two runners aboard and no outs in the sixth inning and retired the final nine men in order including four strikeouts to keep the Louisville offense at-bay.

HOW THE WEST HAS BEEN WON: The Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders already have secured a winning record against the International League West Division in 2019 before the season finale against those teams Sunday in Louisville. Buoyed by a 6-1 record against the Columbus Clippers, the RailRiders are 13-11 which includes a lack of success against the Louisville Bats. The RailRiders are 1-4 against the Bats and 3-3 against both the Indianapolis Indians and Toledo Mud Hens.

MAKING MOVES: With 35 games remaining in the regular season, the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders are keeping up their torrid pace... of roster moves. As the calendar gets ready to turn to July, SWB had made 221 total moves (April, 44 | May, 64 | June, 59 | July, 55) which is far ahead of last season's pace in which the RailRiders had made 207 total moves through July (April, 36 | May, 53 | June, 43 | July, 76) in a year in which they made 275 roster moves (1.99 moves/game) during the regular season. SWB is averaging 2.11 moves/game this season.

RECORD SETTERS: When Mike Ford blasted a two-run home run clear out of Huntington Park in the sixth inning Thursday afternoon, the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders set the franchise record with 165 HR in the first 103 games of the season (1.60 HR/G), which far exceeds the rate for the 132 HR they hit all of last season (0.96 HR/G) and eclipsed the previous franchise record of 164 HR (1.15 HR/G) over 142 games set by the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Red Barons in 1998. With the new baseball in Triple-A, a number of other offensive records (and dubious pitching records) will be under assault as the calendar turns to August, including Slugging Percentage which is at .496 entering Friday, well ahead of the .449 mark put up in 1998 and .024 points ahead of the Gwinnett Stripers who are second in the league. The Scranton/Wilkes-Barre franchise record for runs in a season is 746, set in 1998 (5.25 per game), and this season's team is currently 4th in the International League in runs with 577, but they are on pace to break the franchise record with 5.50 per game.

A QUICK PROJECTION: Friday featured a loss by both the RailRiders (60-45, .571) and one by the team closest to them in the IL North standings, the Buffalo Bisons (54-51, .514). Scranton/Wilkes-Barre has 35 games to go in the regular season and holds a 6.0-game lead on the Bisons for first place (the largest lead this season was +8.0 GB June 20 following Game No. 70). That means if the RailRiders were to go 18-17 (.514) the rest of the way, the Bisons would need to go 24-11 (.686) to catch them in the division. These two teams play four games over four days at PNC Field to wrap-up the regular season leading into Labor Day.

GRAND SLAMS: In the 7th inning last Friday night, Zack Zehner belted an opposite-field grand slam at PNC Field to put the RailRiders ahead 5-0. The blast was the sixth grand slam of the year for SWB, breaking the old franchise record of five set in 2005 (Shane Victorino, Chris Coste, Ryan Howard, Anthony Medrano and Jorge Padilla). Zehner joins Breyvic Valera, Trey Amburgey, Kyle Higashioka, Mike Ford and Billy Fleming with slams in 2019. Since then, Wendell Rijo has added the seventh grand slam of the year by the RailRiders in Thursday's 10-6 win over the Columbus Clippers.

Check out the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders Statistics

Share: Facebook | Twitter/X | LinkedIn | Reddit | Email



International League Stories from July 28, 2019


The opinions expressed in this release are those of the organization issuing it, and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts or opinions of OurSports Central or its staff.

OurSports Central