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The Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders may have came away with their 11th win in their last 14 games Thursday night in Columbus, but the victory came with a price.
Outfielder Clint Frazier exited the 7-3 win prior to his second-inning at-bat.
Frazier, who missed the start of the season with a concussion, left Thursday’s win with lightheadedness after attempting to make a diving catch in the first inning. Frazier wasn’t feeling well prior to the game, but felt worse after the play which caused, him to be pulled.
“Yeah, (Frazier) wasn’t feeling too good before the game started really at all and that kind of didn’t help,” RailRiders manager Bobby Mitchell told the Times Leader over phone after the game Thursday night. “His head just wasn’t — he said he felt a little foggy and stuff like that. We decided to get him out of there. He just wasn’t feeling very good and so he’s being evaluated to see exactly what the issue was.”
Mitchell said after the win that Frazier was day-to-day at the moment, but was still being evaluated. He could end up on the 7-day concussion disabled list depending on how he’s feeling on Friday.
“He was able to play, but he just felt a little lightheaded or whatever and just afterward, when he went diving, he felt a little worse so we just got him out of there,” Mitchell said. “There’s a chance he could go on the DL just because he’s had the concussion syndrome thing and you want to be careful with that. Don’t know exactly the move and how he’ll feel tomorrow, but there’s a possibility that yeah he could (end up on the DL).”
Mike Ford slugged a home run among his three hits and later scored on a passed ball Thursday as the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders fought back from an early 2-0 deficit..
Ford’s blast in the fourth inning, his 10th of the season, put the RailRiders up, 3-2 and came off rehabbing Cleveland Indians reliever Andrew Miller, who allowed just that one hit and struck out one in one inning of work.
After Columbus used a home run by Eric Haase to tie the game in the bottom of the fourth, Shane Robinson — Frazier’s replacement — scored on Brandon Drury’s single in the fifth inning as the RailRiders took the lead for good.
All four Columbus hits came off RailRiders starter Erik Swanson, who worked 4.1 innings.
Swanson, who was on the disabled list with a groin injury earlier this month, was on a 64-pitch, pitch count. He was pulled after 61 pitches.
Giovanny Gallegos earned the victory for the RailRiders with 2.2 innings of perfect relief. He finished with four strikeouts and started a string of 4.2 innings of hitless relief by Scranton/Wilkes-Barre’s bullpen. He was followed by Tommy Kahnle, who walked one and struck out one while allowing the bullpen’s only baserunner, then Cody Carroll struck out the side in the ninth to wrap up the victory.
Former Tunkhannock star Mike Papi went 0-for-3 and struck out twice while batting sixth and playing right field for Columbus.