Omar Bencomo hurls 6 strong innings in his IL debut.
DURHAM, N.C. — Omar Bencomo retired the final 16 batters he faced and allowed just one hit over 6.0 innings as the Rochester Red Wings beat the Durham Bulls 5-2 Wednesday afternoon at Durham Bulls Athletic Park.
Bencomo (1-0), who came up from Double-A Chattanooga, started in place of the regularly scheduled starter Aaron Slegers. He allowed a one-out single to Willy Adames and Justin Williams reached on an error with two outs in the 1st. The Bulls (29-22) were retired in order for the remainder of Bencomo’s outing. He threw just 77 pitches and 12 of those came in one at-bat to Jake Bauers in the opening frame.
The Red Wings (26-23) got on the board with a solo home run from Kennys Vargas in the 2nd. It was the second home run in as many days for Vargas, who leads the team with seven long balls.
Former Wing Chih-Wei Hu (1-4) started for Durham and ran into trouble in the 4th. Nick Gordon hit a triple on an 0-2 pitch to open the inning and scored on Jake Cave’s single. Chris Carter followed with a two-run homer to make it 4-0. Nick Buss would triple in Wynston Sawyer later in the frame to extend the lead to 5-0.
Alan Busenitz took over in the 7th and retired the first two hitters of the inning before a single from Jason Coats, ending a string of 18 hitters set down in a row by Red Wings pitching.
Rochester committed two errors in the 9th inning, including one that would have ended the game and secured another shutout, that allowed Durham to bring the tying run to the on-deck circle but John Curtiss struck out the final batter of the game to secure a 5-2 victory.
Five Wings scored a run and seven recorded a hit. Vargas was the lone player in the game with two hits.
The teams will wrap up the 3-game set on Thursday at 7:05 pm.