DURHAM, NC. (June 15, 2019) - The Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders lost their second straight to the Durham Bulls and their third straight overall, falling 2-0 Saturday in front of a sellout crowd at Durham Bulls Athletic Park. A capacity crowd of 12,000 watched five Bulls pitchers blank the RailRiders on two hits
DURHAM, NC. (June 15, 2019) - The Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders lost their second straight to the Durham Bulls and their third straight overall, falling 2-0 Saturday in front of a sellout crowd at Durham Bulls Athletic Park. A capacity crowd of 12,000 watched five Bulls pitchers blank the RailRiders on two hits and two walks.
Raynel Espinal and two Durham arms battled over the first six innings. Jake Cronenworth, who played short on Friday and was a single shy of the cycle, got the start Saturday. The right-hander induced a groundout from Aaron Judge and struck out Giancarlo Stanton before allowing a hit and a walk. Cronenworth closed the first inning with a groundout.
Brendan McKay took over for the Bulls in the second and allowed a leadoff double to Trey Amburgey; the last RailRiders hit of the game.
Espinal struck out two in the first and two in the second before Durham tallied the first run.
The Bulls took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the third. Nathan Lukes singled and advanced to second on an errant pick-off throw. After a flyout advanced the runner to third, Kean Wong singled to left, driving in Lukes for the early advantage.
Durham added a solo home run in the seventh. Michael Perez lined a 1-1 pitch from reliever Stephen Tarpley into the right field stands as the Bulls doubled their lead.
Espinal (3-5) worked six complete innings with a career-best nine strikeouts, allowing one run, unearned, on four hits. McKay (3-0) pitched five shutout frames with seven strikeouts and allowed just the one hit and one walk. Mike Franco and Vidal Nuno combined for two scoreless innings of relief for Durham before Ian Gibaut pitched a 1-2-3 ninth for his second save.
Judge and Stanton, playing their second games with Scranton/Wilkes-Barre on Allied Integrated Health Systems rehab assignments, each went 0-for-4 Saturday.
The RailRiders and Bulls close this three-game set on Sunday at 5:05 p.m. Scranton/Wilkes-Barre will pit Chance Adams against Durham and Ricardo Pinto. The RailRiders are idle Monday and begin a six-game homestand on Tuesday against the Norfolk Tides.
