SWB RailRiders Game Notes

June 23, 2018 - International League (IL1)
Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders News Release

SCRANTON/WILKES-BARRE RAILRIDERS (35-37) @ ROCHESTER RED WINGS (35-35)

LHP Nestor Cortes (0-3, 4.76) vs. RHP Aaron Slegers (5-4, 3.28)

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| First Pitch 7:05 p.m. | Pregame Show 6:35 p.m. |

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LAST TIME OUT: Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders dropped a 3-1 decision to the Rochester Red Wings on Friday night at Frontier Field. Rochester's Stephen Gonsalves and Scranton/Wilkes-Barre's Justus Sheffield matched zeros for four innings. Sheffield allowed just one hit over the first four with six strikeouts, while Gonsalves only allowed two hits, but walked four and hit one.

The Red Wings took the lead in the bottom of the fifth. With Zack Granite and Gregorio Petit on, Byron Buxton hit a three-run home run to left off of the RailRiders starter. Buxton, with Rochester on a rehab assignment for a broken toe, hit his first home run in his fourth game for the Red Wings this year.

Scranton/Wilkes-Barre broke up the shutout bid in the eighth against the Rochester bullpen. Tyler Austin doubled to start the inning and scored on a Ronald Torreyes groundout.

The RailRiders brought the tying run to the plate in the ninth but could not bring another across against John Curtiss. Gonsalves (5-3) notched the win and Sheffield (1-3) took the loss. Curtis pitched the final two and a third for his sixth save.

CONTINUITY: The Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders are starting to come together and play as a unit in the month of June (11-9) after sub-.500 records in April and May. Part of that can be attributed to a lower number of roster moves per day than what the team was experiencing at the start of the season. 36 roster moves over 23G in April (1.57/G) // 52 roster moves over 29G in May (1.79/G) // 26 roster moves over 20G in June (1.30/G)

NEEDING SOME LENGTH: Due to Monday's off-day, the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders bullpen was well-rested entering Tuesday's game even though the pitching staff has not been able to provide much depth at the start of games. Over the previous 8G before LHP Justus Sheffield tossed 6.0 innings Friday night against the Red Wings, the only pitcher to have thrown at least six innings was LHP Josh Rogers who went 7.0 innings in Syracuse and followed that up with 6.0 innings Wednesday for the RailRiders. This season, Rogers has gone 6.0+ innings in 9-of-14 (64%) of his starts, while the rest of the team has just 11 such starts in the other 58 games (19%).

ROLLING ALONG: The Scranton Wilkes/Barre RailRiders headed to Frontier Field in Rochester, N.Y. for the first time this season Friday night. It was the first of two trips north for SWB, including a visit July 30 - August 2. The RailRiders have won three straight series entering the weekend set against the Rochester Red Wings, starting with taking 3-of-4 from Rochester June 11-13. Over the last 12 games, the RailRiders have an 8-4 record which is tops in the International League. By taking 2-of-3 against the Lehigh Valley IronPigs, SWB had drawn back to within 5.5 games of first place before falling back to 6.5 games back of the 'Pigs with Friday's loss.

POWERING UP: In the blink of an eye, the SWB RailRiders are the leading HR-hitting team in the International League. At the end of April, the team had 15 HR in 23G (0.65 HR/G) which was good for 6th in the 14-team I.L. Since then, Scranton/Wilkes-Barre has 57 HR in its last 49G (1.16 HR/G) including 24 in 20G so far in June (1.20 HR/G).

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