Norfolk bats, Rodriguez send RailRiders to sixth straight loss
Jun. 10—MOOSIC — Asked what has made Norfolk so tough to beat these first two games, Scranton/Wilkes-Barre manager Shelley Duncan ran down a list of the kinds of traits that would be expected for any supremely talented team.
Disciplined at the plate. They don't chase with two strikes. They hit mistakes.
"And they've got a great catcher back there," Duncan quipped, referencing José Godoy, the veteran backstop who was on the RailRiders roster until last week and who has now burned his former team twice in two games.
After tying Thursday's game with a single in the eighth inning, Godoy reached base four times out of the ninth spot in the lineup Friday, including a two-run homer in the fourth that sent Norfolk on its way to an 8-4 win over Scranton/
Wilkes-Barre.
Former Baltimore Orioles top pitching prospect Grayson Rodriguez added six strong innings for International League-leading Norfolk (42-17), striking out 10 to send the RailRiders (27-32) to their sixth straight loss, extending their season-worst slide.
"He's got a lively arm," Duncan said. "Lively arm, good changeup, good slider — seemed like a lot of righties were having a hard time with it. With two strikes, he did not give in. He made it really rough on us."
The RailRiders managed to hit some balls hard against the big righty, but Rodriguez limited most of the damage with his strikeouts, or with some help from his defense. Third baseman Jordan Westburg snared a smash off Andrés Chaparro's bat in the first inning that might've saved a run. In the second inning, second baseman Terrin Vavra made a hard charge on a soft grounder by Wilmer Difo that could've loaded the bases and turned over the RailRiders lineup.
Rodriguez, who had a 7.35 ERA in 10 starts with Baltimore this year, averaged 97.1 mph on his fastball and topped out at 98.7. The RailRiders came up empty on 27 of the 57 swings they took against him. The only time Rodriguez blinked was in the fourth inning, when Franchy Cordero crushed a home run to get the RailRiders on the board. With two outs, Cordero drilled a fastball 417 feet to the left of dead center at a clip of 113.1 mph, but by that time, it only got the RailRiders within three runs of Norfolk.
Jhony Brito made his third start of the season with the RailRiders and allowed six runs in 5 1/3 innings, though he got through the first two frames relatively unscathed.
Godoy led off the third with a walk that came on a full-count pitch clock violation by Brito. The RailRiders argued that catcher Ben Rortvedt called timeout before the clock hit zero, but it was to no avail. Terrin Vavra followed with the first of five Norfolk homers on the night, a 423-foot blast to dead center that made it 2-0.
Godoy's two-run blast off a hanging breaking ball pushed Norfolk's advantage to 5-0 in the fourth. After Cordero's homer cut into the lead, Connor Norby started the fifth inning with another home run to make it 6-2. Norfolk went on to load the bases in the inning, but Brito worked out of any further trouble.
"(Brito) showed flashes of really good stuff and it just seemed like he made some mistakes, and every mistake he made was hit well," Duncan said.
Cordero drove in a third run with a sacrifice fly in the sixth inning, only for Norfolk to again answer with a home run. This one, however, had some help from the twilight sky.
Playing in his second Triple-A game, former No. 2 overall pick Heston Kjerstad lofted a fly ball to deep center that Estevan Florial immediately lost sight off. By the time it dropped just shy of the track behind him, Kjerstad was rounding second on his way to an inside-the-park home run.
Jordan Westburg tallied the final longball for the Tides, bashing a breaking ball from Deivi García into the bullpens in left to lead off the ninth.
The RailRiders had some chances late, but couldn't turn them into big innings. They had the first two on in the eighth, then reliever Easton Lucas retired the next three in a row. In the ninth, Jesús Bastidas led off with a triple to the gap in right center and Florial worked a one-out walk, but all they would manage was an RBI single from Oswald Peraza. Logan Gillaspie sat down the next two batters to strand two on base and end the game.
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