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Add Rochester to the list of places the RailRiders will be happy not to see again this season.
Scranton/Wilkes-Barre’s offense was struck by a power outage during the final trip to Rochester on the schedule. After dropping Thursday’s matinee 5-3 to the Red Wings, the RailRiders finished the season just 1-7 at Frontier Field.
Rochester swept this week’s two-game set and held Scranton/Wilkes-Barre to four runs without any extra-base hits. The RailRiders had slammed 171 home runs in the 108 games coming into the series.
The RailRiders managed six singles in a 6-1 loss on Wednesday before recording seven base hits on Thursday. Remarkably, none of them in either game managed to drive in a run.
Down 4-0 after five innings, Francisco Arcia got the RailRiders (62-48) on the board with a sacrifice fly in the sixth. It turned out to be the only RBI by a Scranton/Wilkes-Barre player in the two games.
Arcia had an opportunity to change that with the RailRiders down 5-1 in the top of the eighth. A hit batter and two walks loaded the bases with no outs, but Arcia grounded the first pitch he saw to second for a 4-6-3 double play.
Though it brought home a run, it killed the team’s chances at a big rally in the inning. The lone runner left on base, Trey Amburgey, managed to score on a wild pitch during the next at-bat to make it 5-3, but Mandy Alvarez ultimately flied out to end the threat.
Amburgey tried to end the extra-base drought with the bases loaded and two outs in the ninth, but former major leaguer Alejandro De Aza tracked down his long fly to right for the final out.
De Aza had already done plenty of damage earlier in the game against RailRiders starter Daniel Camarena. The veteran hit two home runs — a solo shot in the in the second and a two-run blast in the fifth — and also singled to lead off the bottom of the fourth, coming around to score on Ramon Flores’ double.
Camarena dropped to 4-7 on the season, allowing four earned runs on 10 hits in six innings while walking one and striking out four.
Former RailRiders outfielder Jake Cave welcomed Brady Lail to the game in the seventh, sending Lail’s third pitch over the fence in left for a home run. It was the only hit Lail allowed in the inning before Domingo Acevedo turned in a scoreless eighth.
Scranton/Wilkes-Barre got two hits apiece from Alvarez — who was called up a day earlier from Double-A Trenton when fellow infielder Breyvic Valera went up to New York — and Wendell Rijo.
Rochester won the season series against the RailRiders 11-8.
Scranton/Wilkes-Barre still has a five-game lead over Buffalo atop the IL North. The RailRiders will have a chance to strengthen their hold on first place as they now begin a nine-game homestand over the next 10 days.
Up first is a weekend series against another division foe in Lehigh Valley, with the series opener set for 7:05 p.m. Friday.