Moosic, Pa- In the opening game of a short, two-game series and home stand, the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders (Triple-A/ New York Yankees) were down to their last strike as Jose Pirela smacked a walk-off three-run scoring triple to take a 6-5 victory over the Syracuse Chiefs (Washington Nationals) at PNC Field. The RailRiders (64-66) saw a 3-0 lead dissolve as the Chiefs (74-55) used timely hitting, scoring three of their five unanswered runs with two outs in the middle innings to take a 5-3 lead. Pirela added his own timely hit, punching an opposite-field, three-run triple for the team’s seventh walk-off win of the season. Pirela finished 3-for-5 with a single, home run and the triple.
The ninth started with Zelous Wheeler, Scott Sizemore, and Taylor Dugas reaching base with nobody out. It didn’t look promising after an infield fly and strikeout followed. Pirela down to the team’s final strike provided some two-out magic to give the RailRiders’ the game that they saw slip away early on.
SWB provided early run support for Zach Nuding. Pirela and Rob Refsnyder singled in the first, and Almonte followed suit, with an RBI hit to take a 1-0 lead. Later in the inning, a passed ball allowed Refsnyder to hustle home from third to take a 2-0 lead. In the third, Pirela crushed a home run over the left field wall staking a 3-0 lead.
Nuding held the Chiefs in check through his first four innings allowing just three base runners and striking out seven. However, the Chiefs solved the righty in the fifth. They scored two runs in the frame on a Josh Johnson single and Will Rhymes sacrifice fly to cut SWB’s lead 3-2. Diego Moreno wasn’t sharp for SWB in relief, allowing three runs in two innings including the tying run in the sixth and the go-ahead runs in the seventh, courtesy of a Tyler Moore two-run home run.
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