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IL1 Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders

SWB Game Notes

August 24, 2019 - International League (IL1)
Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders News Release


SCRANTON/WILKES-BARRE RAILRIDERS (70-60) @ LEHIGH VALLEY IRONPIGS (60-68)

RHP Brian Keller (1-1, 6.62) vs. RHP Jerad Eickhoff (2-1, 5.11)

| Game No. 131 | Coca-Cola Park | Allentown, PA | August 24, 2019 | First Pitch 6:35 p.m. |

ALLENTOWN, PA (August 23, 2019) -- The Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders fell behind in the first inning against the Lehigh Valley IronPigs, but starting in the fourth inning the RailRiders bats exploded for four runs and controlled the pace the rest of the way en route to an 11-4 victory Friday night.

Before a sellout crowd of 10,100 at Coca-Cola Park, the IronPigs struck for three runs on back-to-back home runs in the bottom of the first inning of RailRiders starting pitcher Adonis Rosa. The right-hander settled-in after the bumpy first inning to finish 5.0 innings and surrender just the three early runs as he improved to 6-0 with the RailRiders this season in 11 appearances. Dating back to his time in Double-A with the Trenton Thunder he has won nine straight decisions since the start of May.

The offense meanwhile got into gear in the top of the fourth inning using a pair of walks and an infield single to load the bases with one out. Ryan McBroom followed with a sac fly to plate Mandy Alvarez and put the RailRiders on the board, trailing 3-1. The next man up was Breyvic Valera, and he deliverer the go-ahead three-run home run to cap a four-run frame and put SWB on top 4-3.

With runs in the fourth, sixth, seventh and eighth the RailRiders grew their lead to 11-4 to make in comfortable for the bullpen. The four relief arms of Ryan Dull, Ben Heller, David Hernandez and Kaleb Ort combined to allow one run on one hit over 4.0 innings while fanning four batters to prevent the IronPigs from even considering a rally. Five RailRiders finished with multi-hit performances including Wendell Rijo, Valera, Trey Amburgey, Gosuke Katoh and Alvarez.

FERROUS-IOUSLY HANGING ONTO THE IRON: The Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders enter the three-game weekend series needing to sweep the Lehigh Valley IronPigs in order to retain the IronRail Trophy. Given out each year to the team that wins the head-to-head regular season matchup between the I.L. North rivals, the RailRiders grabbed the trophy back from Lehigh Valley in 2018 by gong 11-9 in 20 games. This season, the teams play 18 games in the regular season, and with three straight wins this weekend the RailRiders will split the series 9-9 and retain the trophy.

WALKING TO THE FINISH: INF Gosuke Katoh has been in the midst of a hot stretch of his season where he has been finding his way on base in any way possible for the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders. In 19G since returning from the Double-A Trenton Thunder, the infielder is batting 20-for-59 (.339 AVG), 3 2B, 2 HR, 11 RBI, 18 BB (.494 OBP) and 3-for-4 SB. Entering Saturday's game, Katoh has reached safely in 23-of-his-last-35 plate appearances (.657 OBP), going 10-for-22 (.455 AVG) with 13 BB.

A TALE OF TWO WEEKS: Despite going just 5-5 over the last 10G, they have been a lot more favorable for the RailRiders offense than the week prior. They have scored 69 runs (6.9 runs/game) and batted 107-for-348 (.307 AVG) in that time. Over 7G before that recent stretch for the RailRiders, they had not scored more than 4 runs in a game, plating just 16 runs (2.28/game) in that stretch in which the team batted .174 (38-for-218).

HANGING ON: The RailRiders used a win Sunday over Gwinnett to snap a six-game losing skid, and have now won 5-of-6 by a combined score of 43-20. In its previous 16G before the run of good play, the team was 3-13 falling from 16-games above .500 with a 6.0-game lead in the division to just a 1.0-game lead in the division. They now hold a modest lead over the Syracuse Mets (1.5 GB) with the Buffalo Bisons (4.0 GB) and Rochester Red Wings (5.0 GB) hot on their heels. Before this recent span of games, the last time the lead in the division was as small as 1.0 games entering Sunday's series-finale was May 30th when they improved to 48-40 on the season as they were growing the lead in the division after just taking over first place from the Syracuse Mets.

MAKING MOVES: With 10 games remaining in the regular season, the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders are keeping up their torrid pace of roster moves. Following a year in which they made 275 roster moves total (1.99 moves/game) during the regular season. SWB has now made 308 heading into Saturday's game against Lehigh Valley, which breaks the 2015 season record of 305 moves in a year. The team is averaging 2.37 moves/game this season and is on pace for 331 roster moves through the end of the regular season.

LOTS OF FACES: With INF Luke Voit appearing at 1B and playing six innings for the RailRiders Friday night, he became the record-setting 76th player to appear in a game for SWB this season; 35 position players and 41 pitchers. This number now far exceeds the 2018 team's total roster of 69 players, and the 2017 mark of 65.

RAILREHABBERS: Yankees INF Luke Voit made his rehab debut for the RailRiders Friday night at Coca-Cola Park, finishing 0-for-3 with a walk. He joins C Gary Sanchez, RHP Jonathan Loaisiga, OF Cameron Maybin, RHP Ben Heller, RHP Domingo German, OF Giancarlo Stanton, OF Aaron Judge, INF Didi Gregorius and OF Aaron Hicks on the list of 10 total 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).

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