Nick Gordon Gordon and Willians Astudillo homer in the win.
By Nick Sciarratta and Chad Raychel / Rochester Red Wings
ROCHESTER, N.Y. — The Rochester Red Wings beat the Columbus Clippers 4-3 Tuesday night at Frontier Field – the eighth straight victory for the Wings.
Nick Gordon got things going early for the Red Wings in the bottom of the first against Clippers’ starter Michael Peoples. He crushed his second home run of the year to give the Wings a 1-0 lead.
Columbus quickly responded in the top of the second against Wings’ starter Devin Smeltzer. Eric Haase hit a two-run home run to take a 2-1 lead.
The Clippers extended their lead in the top of the third with a solo home run off the bat of Greg Allen to make it a 3-1 game.
Brent Rooker got the Wings back on the board in the bottom of the fourth with an RBI double, knocking in Jake Cave from first. Rooker’s doubled extended his hitting streak to thirteen games. Later in the inning LaMonte Wade Jr. singled to right allowing Rooker to score from second to tie the game at three.
Smeltzer finished his outing during the fifth inning finishing with seven strikeouts and one walk, while allowing three earned runs. 52 of his 76 pitches were for strikes. Cody Stashak replaced Smeltzer in the sixth making his Triple-A debut.
Willians Astudillo gave the Wings the lead in the bottom of the sixth with a solo home run to left; his second with Rochester this season and gave the Wings a 4-3 lead.
Peoples finished the night throwing 6.1 innings, allowing eight hits, four earned runs, one walk, while striking out seven. He threw 94 pitches, 66 for strikes.
Stashak threw 2.0 scoreless innings with three strikeouts before Gabriel Moya entered the game in the top of the eighth and pitched a scoreless inning with one strikeout.
*NOTES — The last time the Red Wings won eight straight games was June 1-8, 2006…INF Drew Maggi came into the game ranking sixth in the International League with a .419 on-base percentage…RHP Cody Stashak made his Triple-A debut, pitching 2.0 scoreless innings and earning the win. He had previously pitched for Double-A Pensacola with a record of 2-3 with four saves and a 4.76 ERA…RHP Fernando Romero pitched a scoreless ninth earning his first professional save…INF Nick Gordon extended his hitting streak to 10 games with his home run in the first inning…OF LaMonte Wade J.r. extended his on-base streak to 8 games with his single in the fourth inning…The teams meet again Wednesday night at 7:05 pm, with former Bills star Mark Kelso signing autographs and another $1 Wednesday, with $1 Zweigle’s hot dogs, peanuts, chips, and Cracker Jack.