By Craig Potter
Rochester falls 5 games behind in the Wild Card chase after a 5-1 loss to the IronPigs.
ROCHESTER, N.Y. – The Rochester Red Wings continue to struggle against Lehigh Valley as the IronPigs took the 3-game series, 2-1, on Sunday afternoon following a 5-1 victory over the Wings before 5,252 fans at Frontier Field.
Rochester managed just 4 hits, 2 by Logan Schafer.
“We’re playing the second-place team and you want to get some wins together,” Schafer said. “There’s been a lot of turnover (in the roster), a lot of changes. It’s still a long season. We’ve got a whole month left. We play those guys (8) more times so we’ve still got some time.
“This was a big series and they took 2 of 3 from us. We’ve got a couple more series with them and we’ll see how it goes.”
Wilfredo Tovar tripled in the fourth inning and scored on Daniel Palka’s ground-out for the Wings only run. Reynaldo Rodriguez accounted for the other hit.
“(Jake) Thompson did very well for them,” said Red Wings manager Mike Quade. “We gave ourselves a couple of opportunities (left bases loaded in the 7th and 2 on in the 9th).
“We’ve got to score runs. The big bats in the middle, we count on so much and they didn’t have a good day.”
Lehigh Valley scored twice in the second inning off starter Andrew Albers (9-4), who went 6 innings giving up 3 runs on 6 hits. He walked 2 and struck out 5 hitters.
The IronPigs added single runs in the 5th, 7th (off Marcus Walden), and 9th (off Neil Ramirez) frames.
Rochester has a day off on Monday, then the Pawtucket Red Sox come in for games Tuesday and Wednesday night, and Thursday afternoon to complete the season series between the PawSox and Red Wings.
“Days off always help,” Schafer said. “We don’t get very many of them. You’ve got a lot of guys here playing every single day and it’s the time of the season, playing day games after night games; some guys are banged up. Off days always help to get a little rest and enjoy something outside of baseball for a little bit and kind of decompress.”
The PawSox beat Scranton/Wilkes-Barre the past two days.
“They’ve been tough on us,” Quade added. “We lost two out of three to the team we’re chasing, but the whole division has been pretty good. You’ve got your work cut out for you every night.”
The last game of the series in Rhode Island, the Red Wings won 13-5. Quade said he’d like to see that again.
With the victory, Lehigh Valley (66-42) pulled to within a game of International League North Division leader Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders (67-41). LV currently holds the Wild Card berth as Rochester (62-48) trails the IronPigs by 5 games.
Lehigh Valley starts a 4-game series against SWB on Monday in Allentown, PA.
*NOTES – The Red Wings are 3-7 against Lehigh Valley and have 8 games remaining versus the IronPigs this season…Single-A Cedar Rapids left-handed pitcher Lachlan Wells is the Twins minor league Player of the Week. Wells made one starts for the Kernels on Monday against Dayton, pitching 8.0 shutout innings with two hits allowed, one walk and nine strikeouts, earning the win. Wells has made 6 starts for the Kernels, going 3-2, 1.57 ERA (34.1 IP, 6 ER) with 6 walks and 29 strikeouts. He was signed as an undrafted free agent on Aug. 11, 2014 out of Newcastle, Australia…Twins Baseball.com has reported that Red Wings RHP Jose Berrios will be recalled by the Twins, and reportedly will be the starting pitcher on Monday…Berrios was called into manager Mike Quade’s office after the game Saturday night and a team official later said that he was on his way to Minnesota.
Links
Rochester Red Wings – redwingsbaseball.com
Videos
Logan Schafer interview – https://youtu.be/ZkLy3SiquJs
Manager Mike Quade interview – https://youtu.be/PpaI59H9BuY