The Columbus Clippers (33-33) beat the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders (32-33) 5-4 Thursday night. A late rally that included three doubles in the seventh was the difference as the Clippers won to open the homestand and get back to .500 on the season.
Kyle Davies (3-4, 4.26 ERA) earned a quality start for the Clippers in the win. He went seven innings and allowed three runs on seven hits with no walks and a season high seven strikeouts. Jeremy Bleich (0-1, 6.00 ERA) was solid in his Triple-A debut for the RailRiders. He surrendered four runs on four hits and three walks with five strikeouts in six innings of work. He didn’t allow a hit until the third inning. Vinnie Pestano pitched a perfect ninth for his fourth save of the season.
The RailRiders jumped out to a lead in the third. Scranton/Wilkes-Barre loaded the bases with one out, but only scored one run in the inning on a sacrifice fly to deep right by Carmen Angelini.
Kyle Roller led off the fourth with a double and got into scoring position for Scott Sizemore. With one out Sizemore crushed a homer to left and gave the RailRiders a 3-0 lead.
Columbus would get a run back in the fifth via the homerun ball. Carlos Moncrief jumped ahead of the pack of Clippers tied for second in homers behind Jesus Aguilar with a solo shot in the bottom of the fifth inning. Four Clippers are tied for third with five homers.
The Clippers had their first rally in the seventh. After a good stretch the Clippers scored four runs on four hits in the bottom of the seventh. Elliot Johnson started with a lead-off single. Giovanny Urshela scored Johnson on a double that just missed going over the wall in right-center field. After Moncrief was hit by a pitch Danny Burawa replaced Bleich. Roberto “RoboCop” Perez smacked a double off the wall in dead center to tie the game at three. Adam Abraham then crushed a two-run double into the gap in right and gave the Clippers the lead 5-3.
Mark Lowe pitched an inning in relief, but gave up a homer to Zoilo Almonte that cut the Clippers lead to one. He did strike out three batters in the eighth inning.
Moncrief threw out a baserunner to end the first. It was his 13th outfield assist leads the International League. The game lasted two hours and fifteen minutes, the quickest nine inning game of the season.
Game two will be a 7:15 first pitch at Huntington Park Friday night. Travis Banwart (3-2, 3.55 ERA) will take the mound against Bruce Billings (4-1, 4.54 ERA) for the RailRiders.
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