Rochester drops a 5-2 contest to the IronPigs.
By Nick Sciarratta and Collin Hetherington
The Rochester Red Wings lost to the Lehigh Valley IronPigs 5-2 Thursday night at Frontier Field. The teams meet again Friday at 7:05 pm on Star Wars Night.
Lehigh Valley got on the board in the second inning. A base hit and a one-out walk surrendered by Wings starter Aaron Slegers turned into a three-run home run off the bat of Joey Meneses to give the IronPigs an early 3-0 lead.
Brandon Leibrandt got the start for the IronPigs and held the Wings offense in check. Leibrandt went 4.0 innings allowing no runs on three hits, with one walk and no strikeouts.He also picked two runners off base. Leibrandt threw 47 pitches, 35 for strikes.
Rochester got on the board in the fifth inning against reliever Jake Thompson, after a one out single by Bobby Wilson was followed by a James Ramsey walk. With men on first and second, two wild pitches allowed Wilson to score and moved Ramsey on third. With two outs and runners on the corners, the third wild pitch of the inning allowed Ramsey to score, cutting the Lehigh Valley lead down to one run at 3-2.
The IronPigs were quick to extend the lead in the sixth as former Wing Trevor Plouffe and Dylan Cozens both reached base after two consecutive fly balls were lost in the lights for base hits. Meneses then picked up a two-out single, allowing Plouffe to score from second, giving the Pigs a 4-2 lead.
Slegers was replaced by Gabriel Moya in the top half of the seventh after a Roman Quinn home run extended the Lehigh Valley lead to 5-2. Slegers went 6.1 innings allowing five runs on 10 hits with one walk and four strikeouts. He threw 98 pitches, 64 for strikes.
Moya kept the Lehigh Valley offense quiet allowing no hits, no walks, while striking out two over 1.2 innings. Moya was replaced by Nick Anderson to begin the ninth inning, and Anderson posted a scoreless inning with one hit allowed.
*NOTES — OF Jimmy Kerrigan, just promoted from Class A Fort Myers and made his Triple-A debut Thursday and was 0-for-1 with a walk and hit by pitch.