IL1 Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders

SWB RailRiders Game Notes

Published on May 9, 2018 under International League (IL1)
Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders News Release


SCRANTON WILKES-BARRE RAILRIDERS (14-17) @ SYRACUSE CHIEFS (15-14)

RHP Chance Adams (0-2, 4.70) vs. RHP César Vargas (0-2, 2.25)

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| Game No. 32 | Wednesday May 9, 2018 | NBT Bank Stadium | Syracuse, NY |

| First Pitch 6:35 p.m. | Pregame Show 6:05 p.m. |

LAST TIME OUT: The Syracuse Chiefs led after two innings of play, and never looked back as the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders lost Tuesday night for the ninth time in their last 10 road games to drop to 14-17 on the season.

Syracuse opened the scoring in the bottom of the second off RailRiders starting pitcher Nestor Cortes. Matt Hague scored on a double by Jacob Wilson for the early 1-0 lead. An inning later, the Chiefs doubled the lead on a sacrifice fly from Adrian Sanchez to plate Hunter Jones and extend the lead to two runs.

That lead proved to be more than enough for the Chiefs, though Scranton/Wilkes-Barre rallied in the top of the fourth inning. Clint Frazier led off the inning with a single to left and advanced into scoring position on a Mike Ford walk. Frazier advanced to third on a fly ball double play and scored on a two-out single to right field by Zack Zehner, second on the team with 13 RBI this season.

Syracuse added a pair in the sixth inning on four consecutive singles with two outs and the bases empty, keyed by a two out, two-run single by Irving Falu for a 4-1 edge. Though they won 4-1, twice during the game the Chiefs had runners thrown out at the plate by the RailRiders preventing what could have been a more lopsided final score.

SLOW START: It was a quick start to the season last year for RHP Chance Adams with the Trenton Thunder, bullying his way into a promotion to Triple-A. In his first six starts of the season with Trenton the right-hander was 4-0 with a 1.03 ERA (35.0 IP, 23 H, 6R/4ER, 15 BB, 32 K), winning the Eastern League Pitcher of the Week for the week of April 16. However, a slow-start is not something that is totally unfamilir to one of the top prspects in the Yankees system. In 2016, Adams' April with the Tampa Yankees got off to a slow start. Through five starts he had a 5.95 ERA with 20 H in 19.2 IP (.263 BAA). Then starting in May, he was 4-0, 0.95 ERA, 38.0 IP, 21 H (21-for-133, .158 BAA), 48 K (11.4 K/9), 7 BB (1.7 BB/9) in his next seven starts to set the tone for the rest of the season.

AN AWAKENING: Monday night featured an explosive eight runs on 10 hits in an 8-3 win for the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders over the Syracuse Chiefs. Despite that, they followed up with a quite offensvie night in Tuesday's 4-1 loss. In the last 11 games for the RailRiders, the offense has been rather sluggish, combining for 29 runs (2.6/game) on 74 hits (6.7/game) and only twice have scored more than four runs in a game.

FALLING BEHIND EARLY...: Sunday afternoon, the Pawtucket Red Sox scored their lone two runs of the game in the 1st inning on a pair of sacrafice flies off starting pitcher LHP Justus Sheffield. Even though it was just his first career start with the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders, it continues a trend by RailRiders starters this season in which they allow early runs. In the first two innings of games this season, opponents are outscoring the RailRiders 38-12 (-26) which has immediately put SWB in an early hole. In fact, of the 30 games this season the opponent has scored first only 17 times (57%), but the RailRiders were 4-12 when allowing the first run of the game before Monday's comeback 8-3 win.

...MAKING IT CLOSE LATE: Meanwhile, the RailRiders are doing their best to make a run at teams when trailing in the later innings. SWB is +30 in run differential in the 7th, 8th and 9th innings, outscoring their opponents 51-21 in that time. Despite those impressive numbers, the RailRiders are just 2-15 when trailing after six innings and 1-12 when trailing after eight innings -- the lone comeback win in the 9th inning being the five-run bottom of the 9th on Opening Night in which Abiatal Avelino capped a 6-5 win with a walk-off three-run home run.

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International League Stories from May 9, 2018


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