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ALLENTOWN — Matt Wotherspoon could have have been nervous making his Triple-A debut for his hometown team on Thursday night.
Sure there were butterflies, but that feeling was no different than the usual nervousness surrounding any outing.
The Crestwood grad made quite an impression with the RailRiders at Coca-Cola Park, pitching two scoreless innings allowing just one walk and struck out two while finishing Scranton/Wilkes-Barre’s 10-1 victory over Lehigh Valley.
“I’m just trying to do my thing out there and no matter what level I’m pitching at, I’m going to try to do what works for me,” said a calm Wotherspoon, who entered the game with SWB leading 10-1.
“All I’m thinking about is attacking the strike zone when I’m coming into a baseball game, especially in that situation where we’re up a bunch. I’m trying to attack the strike zone, pitch to contact and just get outs.”
Pitching in a game for the first time in six days after throwing four scoreless innings for Trenton on April 29, the right-hander needed to throw just 29 pitches (19 for strikes) to the seven batters he faced. Becoming the first pitcher from the Wyoming Valley Conference to ever pitch for the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre franchise, Wotherspoon struck out the first batter he faced, Ryan Jackson needed seven pitches to do so. After walking Darnell Sweeney, the IronPigs leadoff hitter, he promptly fanned Cam Perkins and got one of Philadelphia’s top prospects Nick Williams to pop out to end the eighth inning.
Wotherspoon went back to the mound for the ninth and had a 1-2-3 inning facing the Nos. 4, 5, 6 batters in Lehigh Valley’s lineup.
“I think it’s just an extension of what I have been doing, just trying to pound the strike zone,” Wotherspoon said. “That last inning, faced a couple lefties, throwing sinkers, got some early contact … That’s what I’m trying to do just stay aggressive with the fastball and force them into contact.”
Wotherspoon relieved Richard Bleier, who pitched his best game of the year in three appearances. The left-hander went seven innings allowing just one run. After giving up a run in the bottom of the first inning, he faced just two batters over the minimum over his last six innings. He tossed a season-high 93 pitches with just 30 of them going for balls. He walked just one and fanned four.
“I was definitely happy I left it at one and didn’t let two other runs in,” said Bleier about the first inning when the IronPigs left two runners on base after getting their only run. “I knew going into the game, and the first inning that if I could get through the first inning it was going to be alright because I felt pretty good with my stuff.”
Bleier and Wotherspoon were helped immensely by the offense.
The bats got going in the top of the third inning, after the first two outs were recorded and with none on base. Pete Kozma led the charge with a single to right that just went under the glove of IronPigs first baseman Brock Stassi. Eight more SWB batters came to the plate after Kozma.
The big blow was a moonshot, monstrous three-run homer by Aaron Judge giving the team a 3-1 lead. Judge’s fifth homer of the season was his second in as many games and third in his last five games. Nick Swisher added an RBI-double for the fourth run, and another run crossed the plate on a wild pitch.
IronPigs starter Mark Appel was cruising until Kozma singled retiring the first eight batters of the game and striking out four. But after Kozma’s hit, he walked three, uncorked two wild pitches and allowed four more hits in the frame. And the RailRiders made him pay for the wildness sending 11 to the plate.
“Once Pete got on base and got everything started, everything just kinda fell into place,” Judge said. “Mark’s a really good pitcher and has really good stuff, but just giving our hitters a second chance to see him, a lot of our guys were working long counts so we got to see all of his pitches. So I feel like once we were able to get around that second time, they got a pitch and tried to drive something.”
SWB made the IronPigs pay again with two outs later in the game, in the sixth inning. The RailRiders also took advantage of more free passes when Gregory Infante hit Kozma and walked Judge. Then with two outs, Gary Sanchez pulled a homer just over the fence into the left field corner. The three-run shot put the RailRiders in front 8-1.
Deibinson Romero joined in the home run fun in the seventh inning with a two-run homer. It was not only his first longball of the season, but also his first hit in 13 at-bats as the RailRiders took a 10-1 lead.
The IronPigs went ahead 1-0 in the bottom of the first when Tommy Joseph singled in Darnell Sweeney with two outs off Bleier.
RailRiders 10, IronPigs 1
RailRiders`AB`R`H`BI
Solano 2b`4`1`1`0
Judge lf`4`2`1`3
Sanchez c`4`2`2`3
Heathcott cf`5`1`1`0
Swisher dh`5`0`1`1
Refsnyder rf`4`0`1`0
Parmelee 1b`3`1`0`0
Romero 3b`4`1`1`2
Kozma ss`3`2`1`0
Totals`36`10`9`9
Lehigh Valley`AB`R`H`BI
Sweeney 2b`3`1`2`0
Perkins lf` 4`0`0`0
Williams cf`4`0`0`0
Joseph dh/1b`4`0`2`1
Knapp c`4`0`1`0
Stassi 1b/p`3`0`1`0
Hunter rf`3`0`0`0
Nina 3b`3`0`0`0
Jackson ss`3`0`0`0
Totals`31`1`6`1
RailRiders`005`003`200` — `10
IronPigs `100`000`000`—`1
LOB: IronPigs 5, RailRiders 5. DP: IronPigs 0, RailRiders 2. 2B: Swisher (2). HR: Judge (5), Sanchez (4), Romero (1). SB: Solano (1).
RailRiders`IP`H`R`ER`BB`SO
Bleier (W, 1-0) `7.0`6`1`1`1`4
Wotherspoon `2.0`0`0`0`1`2
Lehigh Valley`IP`H`R`ER`BB`SO
Appel (L, 3-1)`5.0`6`5`5`4`6
Infante `2.0`3`5`5`1`0
Garcia `1.0`0`0`0`0`0
Stassi `1.0`0`0`0`0`2
WP: Appel 2
Balk: Bleier
HBP: Kozma (by Infante)
Umpires: HP: Ryan Additon. 1B: Derek Mollica. 3B: Jansen Visconti
T: 2:25 Att: 7,373