SWB Yankees Win Third Straight with 8-2 Victory over IronPigs

April 29, 2012 - International League (IL1)
Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees News Release


Allentown, PA - With the promotion of scheduled Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees (12-10) starter D.J. Mitchell to the Major Leagues, the Yankees were in need of a starter and turned to left hander Mike O'Connor (WP, 1-0). After allowing a two run HR in the first inning, O'Connor settled down, allowing just two hits and no runs to Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs (13-11) over the remainder of his afternoon picking up his first win of the season. The Yankees bats did their scoring five in the first and three in the second on route to an 8-2 win.

Iron Pigs left fielder Domonic Brown rolled a single back up the middle off O'Connor with two out in the top of the first to extend the inning for Cody Overbeck. Overbeck put the Pigs on the board with a two run shot off O'Connor to the lawn seats in left center through the teeth of a 16 mile per hour wind for a 2-0 Lehigh Valley lead.

Trailing heading to the home half of the first, the Yankees went to work against starter Tom Cochran (LP, 2-1), who would not make it out of the second inning. The Yankees scored eight runs off the left hander (seven of which were earned) five in the first inning and three more in the second. With first and third and one down in the first inning, Jayson Nix singled to left scoring Kevin Russo who led the game off reaching base after getting hit by a Cochran pitch. Following a Jack Cust strikeout for the second out of the inning, Brandon Laird's infield single loaded the bases for Colin Curtis. Curtis hammered a pitch off the 17 foot high wall in right, good for a two RBI double and a 3-2 Yankees lead. With runners at second and third Craig Tatum singled in between first and second out into right scoring Laird and Curtis and the lead grew to 5-2.

Scranton/Wilkes-Barre would add to its lead with three more runs in the second inning, once again all coming off Cochran. The Yankees would score two runs on sacrifice flies and one run when one of those sac flies resulted in a dropped fly ball by the left fielder Brown. After a lead off walk to Russo, and a single to Doug Bernier, Cochran ran the count on Dewayne Wise to two balls and no strikes. Iron Pig manager Ryne Sandberg had seen enough and went to the bullpen. All three runs in the inning were charged to Cochran as Nix drove home his second run of the day with a fly ball to center scoring Russo for a 6-1 SWB lead. Cust's fly ball to left was dropped by Brown, scoring one run on what was ruled a sac fly and another on what was called an E7, to run the margin to 8-2.

O'Connor retired the final 10 batters he would face on the afternoon before departing at the end of the fifth inning. The left hander gave up four hits and struck out four batters on the day. Pat Venditte gave the Yankees 3.0 scoreless innings allowing three hits with three strikeouts. Jason Bulger pitched the ninth as Scranton/Wilkes-Barre closed out the series with the Iron Pigs winning three straight games.

Scranton/Wilkes-Barre continues its stretch of 18 consecutive games as the up the "home" team, opening up a four game series with the Rochester Red Wings on Tuesday night with a 7:05 PM first pitch. Right hander Adam Warren (2-1, 6.10) gets the start for the Yankees while the Red Wings will send right hander Cole DeVries (0-1, 2.91) to the mound.



International League Stories from April 29, 2012


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