Bullpen buys RailRiders time to rally for win
Aug. 1—MOOSIC — Coming off a series in Buffalo where they dropped five of six games and were outscored by 30 runs, the RailRiders needed a bounceback game.
Down four runs early in Tuesday's series opener against Rochester, the vibes hadn't exactly turned around yet.
Then Zac Houston and Michael Gomez came out of the bullpen.
The duo punched out 11 hitters and allowed just one hit over five scoreless innings, giving Everson Pereira, Oswald Peraza and the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre offense plenty of time to rally for a 5-4 win at PNC Field.
"It's just good to get in here and kind wash that series away," said Gomez, who worked three innings and struck out five. "It's obviously big to play really well. It was a really well pitched game. Our hitters, too, did a great job of staying in the game the whole way and fighting back. So, it was big. Especially for some morale."
Houston struck out all six batters he faced, so between him, Gomez and starter Edgar Barclay — who allowed four runs over three innings in his Triple-A debut — the RailRiders nine in a row and 11 of 13 batters during a stretch that started with the final out of the third inning.
"To come in and do that after the starter goes three — and we had problems last week — it was very impressive," RailRiders manager Shelley Duncan said. "Very impressive of those two guys. I think that itself gave our offense the ability to do the little things to win a baseball game, not necessarily keep fighting for a big inning."
Trailing, 4-0, when the strikeout streak started, the RailRiders offense began to chip away in the bottom of the third. They loaded the bases with no outs against Rochester starter Jackson Rutledge, then Peraza drove a fly ball to the track in left for a sacrifice fly to get them on the board.
With two outs, Pereira shot a grounder through the middle for the first of his two RBIs on the night. He'd later bring the RailRiders within a run in the seventh, scorching a 111.1-mph line drive single to center to score Peraza, who had doubled with one out. The two RBIs gave Pereira 22 in his first 82 at-bats at Triple-A. One more and he'll move into the top 10 for the season for the RailRiders.
"There we are early in the game and got a big, big hit up the middle for us," Duncan said of the 22-year-old Pereira, who's batting .329 with a .941 OPS. "He's a lot of fun to watch. Ever since he's been up here, he's had a presence in the lineup. He's made our lineup deeper and he's been a huge RBI guy, huge nobody on guy, huge man on first guy. He's a lot of fun to watch hit."
Houston came on for the fourth inning with the RailRiders trailing, 4-2, and struck out the top of the Rochester order on 19 pitches. In the fifth, he did the same to the middle third on just 12 pitches.
"You just kind of ride the wave," he said. "Make strikes, make pitches. Good things happen."
The 6-foot-5 righty went right after the Red Wings, firing a fastball that averaged 95.7 mph and topped out at 97.
"The fastball was really good today," Houston said. "We've been working on a few different things to try and get more vert on my fastball. It just kind of came to fruition today. It was really good. Every strikeout I had was on the fastball tonight."
Gomez didn't skip a beat, striking out four of the next six hitters he faced, with the other two poking weak ground balls. After the RailRiders tied the game in the seventh, he worked around a one-out single to to pitch a scoreless eighth. He'd wind up with his first win of the season.
"I just think that (Zac) was in a good rhythm, and I want to not waste that rhythm that he was in — get right back at 'em," Gomez said.
"Obviously, Edgar, (a) lefty and then you have Zac who's more of a ride guy and then I'm a sinker guy — they're seeing a lot of different arm angles, lot of different stuff, velos are changing up and down."
The RailRiders tied the game in the seventh when Pereira scored on a wild pitch with the bases loaded. Jake Lamb started the go-ahead rally in the ninth by stroking a single, then Duncan called Brandon Lockridge off the bench to pinch run.
As soon as Rochester reliever Joel Peguero went to deliver the next pitch, Lockridge took off for second, easily swiping the base. A couple pitches later, he stole third, putting the potential winning run there with no outs and the top of the lineup up.
"I've been trying to find situations to put Lockridge in to go grab a stolen base right away, and he did that tonight," Duncan said. "And it was fun to see him go first pitch and then take third."
With one out, Peguero jammed Peraza on a pitch, but he was strong enough to dunk it into center for an RBI single, giving the RailRiders their first lead of the night.
"Get a good pitch, get a ball (in the air)," Peraza said of his approach. "I want to win. Want something — want hits, sac fly, something."
In his first game back down with the RailRiders since July 15, Peraza finished 3 for 3 with a double, a walk, a sacrifice fly and two RBIs.
"It's not good seeing him back, but it is good seeing him back," Duncan joked. "He's one of those guys that makes everyone better, makes everyone have better at-bats around him, and he did that tonight."
Matt Bowman picked up the save with a perfect ninth, ringing up one strikeout. It was the RailRiders' 15th of the night, tie their high for the season.
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