Half Good: Walk-Off helps split Saturday

MOOSIC, Pa. (April 27, 2019) - The Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders split action with the Syracuse Mets on Saturday at PNC Field, winning a suspended game 7-6 in ten innings and falling 3-2 in a seven-inning nightcap. Cliff Pennington's walk-off home run in game one capped a RailRiders rally over the Mets, while a late comeback fell short in Saturday's regularly scheduled game.

The RailRiders continued Friday evening's suspended game against the Mets Saturday after 3:05 worth of delays Friday night in which the two teams played one half inning. Friday, Danny Espinosa homered early in the first for the Mets on a line drive to left field during the first inning Friday night. 
 
As play resumed Saturday afternoon, the RailRiders tied the game 1-1 with a run in the bottom of the 2nd.  In the top of the third, Carlos Gómez singled on a ground ball to left fielder Zack Zehner. Grégor Blanco and Espinosa both scored, bringing the tally to 3-1. In the bottom of the inning, Zehner singled to right field scoring Ryan Lavarnway to bring the RailRiders back to within a run, 3-2. 
 
The tally remained the same until the top of the seventh when Espinosa doubled on a fly ball to center fielder Matt Lipka. Tomás Nido and Blanco scored for Syracuse extending their lead to 5-2. 
 
In the bottom of the seventh, the RailRiders rallied to tie the game. Lipka singled on a line drive to left fielder Tim Tebow and Gosuke Katoh scored to cut into the lead and make it 5-3 Syracuse. The next batter was Brad Miller, and the left-hander drilled a home run over the Budweiser RailHouse in right field that cascaded off some branches off trees perched on the mountain- some 482 feet away- evening the score 5-5. 
 
In the top of the 10^th inning, Gomez singled on a line drive to score Espinosa making it 6-5 Mets. Cliff Pennington answered with the heroics for SWB with his walk-off two-run homer, belted over the RailHouse himself securing the 7-6 win in Game 1 for the RailRiders. 
 
In game two, a seven-inning affair, Syracuse started strong at the top of the first with Espinosa doubling early in the inning and later coming around to score for a 1-0 lead. In the third inning Syracuse added to its lead, with Blanco knocking a two-run homer to right field giving Syracuse a 3-0 lead.
 
The RailRiders trailed 3-0 entering the bottom of the 5^th inning, but finally got on the board when Miller doubled to left field plating Kellin Deglan to make it 3-1. In the last inning, Ryan McBroom had a runner at third base with two outs and brought him home with an infield single to bring home Miller- who had tripled one batter earlier- to make it a one-run game. That brought Gosuke Katoh to the plate with the tying run aboard and Katoh representing the winning run, but he struck out against Tyler Bashlor to end the game, a 3-2 win for Syracuse.
The RailRiders will play the third and final game of the series Sunday against Syracuse. First pitch is scheduled for 1:05 p.m.
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