ROCHESTER, NY - After winning the first game of the six-game series with Lehigh Valley, the Rochester Red Wings have dropped the last three games, losing on Friday 9-2 despite a good pitching effort by Andrew Alvarez. Alvarez gave up three runs in the first inning. Otto Kemp started the inning off with a double, and Cal Stephenson followed that up with a single. Payton Henry hit a ground ball to Trey Lipscomb at second that scored Kemp from third, and Stephenson advanced to second.

Alvarez struck out Christian Arroyo and it looked like the Wings might be able to get out of the inning with only giving up one run. That was not the case! The day before, when the Wings were swept in the doubleheader, they had a lot of trouble closing out innings. Lehigh, in the first game Thursday, scored two of their three runs in the third inning, which started scoring with two outs. In the second game, two of the three runs in their 3-1 victory were also scored with two outs.

The Rochester Red Wings, in their last three games, have made six errors, whereas they only made one error in their first three games. They are having difficulty closing out the innings and getting the third out. When you factor in the number of runs the Wings are giving up with two outs and the number of unearned runs due to fielding and throwing errors, these are areas that the Red Wings need to fix to achieve success. After giving up two runs in the first, Alvarez once again looked like he was getting out of the inning when a throwing error to first let the third runner score.

After that, Alvarez did not give up another hit until there were two outs in the fifth inning. He retired 12 Iron Pigs in a row while striking out five. With two outs in the top of the fifth and the score 3-2, Otto Kemp hit a home run, increasing Lehigh’s lead to 4-2. The Iron Pigs would go on to score five more runs (two more were unearned) to win 9-2.

The Red Wings would outhit the Iron Pigs 9 to 8. However, due to timely hitting by Lehigh, 4-12 with Runners in Scoring Position (RISP) while the Wings were 1-9, the Iron Pigs won the game handily. In the first game of the series, the Red Wings were 5-12 RISP (.417), while the Iron Pigs were 0-4 RISP, and the Wings won 10-1. In the last three games combined, the Red Wings have 2-21 (.095) RISP and the Iron Pigs 10-36 (.278) RISP.

Up next:

The Wings will try to end this three-game slide at 1:05 today. It’s another cold, wet day in Rochester, and I’m holding out that the game will be able to be played. Rochester desperately needs to “bunch” some hits together, shore up their defensive play, and finish the innings strong!

One of the Phillies’ top pitching prospects, Mick Abel, will be on the mound, and Andry Lara will be pitching for the Red Wings.