Pigs Come Up Short Against RailRiders, 2-1
The Lehigh Valley IronPigs (55-70) had their chances, but came up short in a 2-1 loss to the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders (70-55) on Wednesday night at PNC Field in Moosic.
Down by a run in the eighth, the Pigs had two on with one out against LHP James Pazos and the bases loaded with two outs against RHP Andrew Bailey but were unable to push across the tying run as Pazos got Kelly Dugan looking at strike three and Bailey fanned Jordan Danks.
Bailey (1.1 IP, H, BB, K) got the final four outs to notch his fourth save of the season.
Brian Bogusevic's (2-4, HR, RBI, R) solo shot off of RailRiders starter Brady Lail in the top of the third gave the IronPigs a 1-0 lead. It was Bogusevic's team leading 11th home run of the season.
Lail (2-1) allowed just the one run on four hits to go along with two walks and a strikeout over six innings of work.
Scranton/Wilkes-Barre tied it at one with a run in the home half of the same frame as Cole Figueroa reached on an error charged to Pigs SS Chase d'Arnaud, moved to third on a double and scored on Ben Gamel's RBI single. With things tied at one, the RailRiders had the bases loaded with one away in the inning, but Pigs starter Anthony Vasquez was able to retire Jose Pirela and Gary Sanchez to avoid any further damage.
Aaron Judge's solo shot in the bottom half of the fourth gave Scranton/Wilkes-Barre a 2-1 lead. The round-tripper was Judge's seventh of the year with the RailRiders.
Vasquez (7-6) gave up two runs (one earned) on five hits while walking three in 6.2 IP.
In the home half of the sixth, the RailRiders had the bases loaded with nobody out but Vasquez was able to get Slade Heathcott to ground into a 1-2-3 double play and Austin Romine to ground to second and end the threat.
Trailing 2-1, the Pigs had runners at the corners with two outs in the seventh but Pazos (1.2 IP, 4 H, 3 K) got d'Arnaud (2-5) to ground into a force to end the inning.
Erik Kratz (2-3, 2B) also had a multi-hit game for Lehigh Valley.
RHP Nefi Ogando (1.1 IP, H, 2 BB) had a scoreless outing in relief for manager Dave Brundage's squad.
The series wraps up on Thursday at 7:05 p.m. as IronPigs LHP Jesse Biddle (2-3, 5.91) will get the ball against Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RHP Kyle Davies (8-7, 3.41).