Tired of ads? Subscribers enjoy a distraction-free reading experience.
Click here to subscribe today or Login.

A little bit of baseball whiplash hit the RailRiders this week at PNC Field.

Scranton/Wilkes-Barre went from throwing it first no-hitter in 15 years on Wednesday before getting blanked on Thursday while managing just three hits.

Naturally, the RailRiders responded with their biggest power night of the year, hitting a season-high six home runs in a 14-5 romp over Rochester.

Shaking off Thursday’s struggles, the first-place RailRiders (44-22) exploded for 14 hits, nearly half of which left the yard.

The highlight was switch-hitter Andrew Velazquez stroking two homers — one from each side of the plate. Velazquez became the second player in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre history to accomplish the feat in a single game.

Armando Alvarez, Donny Sands, Thomas Milone and Frederick Cuevas also went deep in the win. Most encouraging for the RailRiders is that production is coming from new faces, as Sands and Milone are recent call-ups from Double-A Somerset while Cuevas came from High-A Hudson Valley.

Sands has three homers since joining the team last week and Cuevas’ dinger came in just his second career game above Class-A ball.

Alvarez quickly erased any lingering memories of Thursday’s 9-0 loss with a three-run shot in the bottom of the first. And even when Rochester answered with a two-run triple in the top of the third, Sands pushed the lead up to 5-2 with his two-run homer in the home half.

Milone and Velazquez both went deep in the fourth to go with an Alvarez double for a commanding 9-3 lead. Velazquez’s second home run came in the sixth and Cuevas’ was in the seventh.

Cristian Perez drove in a run in the seventh on a groundout to make it 12-3 and Kyle Holder pushed it to 14-3 with a two-run double in the eighth.

Eight different RailRiders recorded at least one hit, led by three by Velazquez. Alvarez finished with four RBIs.

Glenn Otto picked up the win in his first start in Moosic, striking out eight with just one walk in six innings. He gave up three runs on seven hits. Braden Bristo and Stephen Ridings pitched the final three frames.

The RailRiders have won three of the first four games against the Red Wings this week and will go for another series win when the teams meet again at 6:05 p.m. Saturday.