Jul. 21—MOOSIC — Since the last time the RailRiders played a game at PNC Field, they lost six regulars to the big leagues.
It left them with just two players on the bench, and fresh faces up and down the lineup.
One of the new guys didn’t take long to make his presence known.
Donny Sands drilled a line drive that made it just over Rochester left fielder Jake Noll’s head and cleared the bases in the bottom of the 10th inning, allowing Andrew Velazquez to slide home safely just ahead of the relay to give the RailRiders a 7-6 win Tuesday.
“I’m just trying to get a pitch to hit; 0-0, I’m ready to go,” Sands said. “I’m trying to put us in the best position and do damage. It was awesome. We won the game, most important thing. It’s a lot of fun when that happens.”
Sands, who homered in his first Triple-A at-bat Friday in Worcester, also added a towering blast Tuesday that nearly cleared the ads in left field. It helped Scranton/Wilkes-Barre (42-21) climb 21 games over .500 for the first time this season.
Rochester appeared to have the game in hand after tying it up in the ninth on Rafael Bautista’s groundout, then going ahead in the top of the 10th on Adrián Sanchez’s second home run of the night, this one a two-run shot off Greg Weissert that just made it over the fence in left field.
That gave former 2021 RailRiders reliever Nick Goody a two-run lead to work with, though he would have to face the top of Scranton/Wilkes-Barre’s lineup.
Thomas Milone and Velazquez battled to work back-to-back walks and load the bases with no outs before Goody came through with a big strikeout of Socrates Brito. He left a slider in the middle of the plate to Sands, however, and the 25-year-old catcher ripped it to left field.
“I know I hit it really well, so I thought it had a chance to get to the wall,” Sands said.
Noll couldn’t catch up with it, allowing three runs to score, with RailRiders manager Doug Davis waving around the speedy Velazquez from first.
“I mean, the dude flies,” Sands said of Velazquez. “So, I was hoping (he would score). It was like, we want to end this game. But I mean I think he had a really good read on it. But yeah, he flies.”
Once home plate umpire Ryan Wills signaled safe, the RailRiders ran to mob Sands at second base.
“Donny’s aggressive,” Davis said. “He’s very confident in himself, very confident in what he does. He’s going to turn a fastball around. He did tonight again. He did in Worcester. I think he kind of was looking slider in that situation from Goody, because he knew he was eventually going to get one, and get got one that was up a little bit and hammered it.”
The RailRiders got another solid start from Deivi García, who pitched more innings Tuesday than he had in any start this year, and struck out more hitters than he had in any game since mid-May.
He worked six innings and allowed six hits, including two home runs that helped Rochester ding him for three runs: a two-run homer by Sanchez in the third, then a game-tying drive from Jakson Reetz that started the fifth.
Other than those two mistakes, García kept Rochester quiet. He struck out the side in the second and the fourth innings, and made it a full six-inning outing when center fielder Socrates Brito threw out Derek Dietrich at home plate to end the sixth.
“They did not hit his fastball well,” Davis said. “I thought again he located. He’s been just continuing to get better each start.”
García walked just two and struck out nine, tying his season high which he set May 16 against Lehigh Valley. He entered July with a 8.55 ERA, but has shaved nearly two runs off that by allowing six runs over 16 innings this month.
He left with the game tied at 3 after Sands and Armando Alvarez went back-to-back off Rochester starter Josh Rogers in the fourth inning, then Milone singled home another in the inning off reliever Alberto Baldonato.
Alvarez homered again in the eighth inning, giving the RailRiders a 4-3 lead that wouldn’t stand for long. It was his first multi-homer game since Aug. 5, 2018.
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