Bryon Buxton’s 3-run homer is enough to beat Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, 3-1.
By CRAIG POTTER
ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Bryon Buxton’s lone hit, a 3-run homer, propelled the Rochester Red Wings to their fourth win in a row with a 3-1 victory over the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders on Friday night before 7,713 fans at Frontier Field.
Buxton, on a rehab assignment from the Minnesota Twins, went 1-for-4, but the hit proved to be the game-winner with a 3-run, 370-foot blast over the left field fence in the fifth inning to break a scoreless tie.
“I still have to get back into the groove of things,” said Buxton, who is 3-for-14 (.214) with 7 strikeouts since joining the Red Wings on Tuesday. “I need to cut down on my strikeouts. I need to put the ball in play more.
“I know when I get on base, I cause havoc.”
Zack Granite (fielder’s choice) and Gregorio Petit (single) were on base. The homer was Buxton’s sixth at Frontier Field for the Wings. He has 14 career home runs in a Rochester uniform with 6 of those coming as the leadoff hitter in the game. Last season at Toledo, Buxton hit the first pitch of the game for a homer.
“The more aggressive I am, the more I tend to be myself,” Buxton said. “When I say aggressive, I mean picking out good pitches for me to hit hard.”
Pitching and defense also played key roles in the victory. Starting hurler Stephen Gonsalves, who had struggled with the RailRiders in the past, kept the visitors off the scoreboard through five innings. However, he did allow 8 baserunners on 2 singles, 5 walks, and 1 hit batsman.
“He did a nice job with men on base,” said Red Wings manager Joel Skinner. ”
The defense bailed him out with double plays in the second and third frames, each one started by shortstop Petit. With a runner on first and one out, Petit dove to his left to grab the ball in his glove. He flipped the ball to second baseman Nick Gordon for the forceout. Gordon threw on to first baseman Kennys Vargas to complete the double play.
Again in the third with one out and a runner on first, Petit fielded a grounder, raced to second to get the forceout, then threw on to Vargas for the DP.
“Petit made two nice plays,”Skinner said. “He made a nice play in the hole that deep at shortstop and again in the middle of the diamond so there was some good things happening on defense, also.”
The RailRiders finally pushed a run across in the eighth off reliever John Curtiss, came on in the seventh in relief of Jake Reed with the bases loaded and two outs. Curtiss got Brandon Drury to ground out to second to end the threat.
The save was Curtiss’s 6th of the season.
The win evened the Red Wings record at 35-35.
The 3-game series continues Saturday night with a 7:05 pm start and concludes Sunday with a matinee at 1:05 pm.
*NOTES — In a roster move Friday, OF Edgar Corcino has been promoted to the Red Wings from Double-A Chattanooga…Prior to Friday’s game, Rochester had not hit a home run since Willians Astudillo hit a 2-run blast in the 9th inning on June 13 at Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, spanning 7 games and 68 innings. Astudillo also hit the last home run at Frontier Field in the 5th inning on June 8 vs Durham, which spans 5-plus games and 60 innings. The Red Wings have hit 42 homers this season, second-fewest in the International League ahead of Syracuse (33). The Wings hit 10 of those home runs (24.4%) in one 5-game road trip to Durham and Norfolk from May 29-June 1…Rochester’s bullpen has pitched to a 2.44 ERA (69 ER, 254.2 IP) so far this season while surrendering 90 total runs on 222 hits and 89 walks with 296 strikeouts. That ERA has risen from 2.19 over the last 21 games since May 28.