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| José Butto pitched five and two-thirds innings of one-run ball on Friday night for Syracuse and retired the last 12 batters he faced (Rick Nelson). |
Moosic, PA – The Syracuse Mets dropped their second consecutive game in walk-off fashion to the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders with a 2-1 RailRiders win on Friday night. A walk-off single was the knockout blow on Friday, while a walk-off sacrifice fly gave Scranton/Wilkes-Barre a win in game two of Thursday's doubleheader.
Syracuse (53-74) entered the top of the ninth inning tied, 1-1, with Scranton/Wilkes-Barre (67-59). Daniel Palka led off the inning with a line-drive single to left field. Khalil Lee followed with a sharp groundball single to left field, putting runners at first base and second to begin the ninth. Unfortunately, the next three Syracuse hitters were retired in order to keep the Mets from taking the lead. Syracuse finished the night 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position and left eight runners on base during the game.
Scranton/Wilkes-Barre began the bottom of the ninth inning with a Chad Bell single. Chris Owings then came in to pinch run for Bell. Blake Perkins followed with a sacrifice bunt that moved Owings to second base. Matt Pita struck out for the second out of the frame, pulling Syracuse one out away from forcing extra innings. Unfortunately, again for the Mets, left-hand hitting Rob Brantly grounded a ball to left side towards shortstop away from a shift. Syracuse shortstop JT Riddle slowed the ball down in shallow left field, but Owings scored from second base on the play to give the RailRiders a 2-1 walk-off win on the infield single.
The game's scoring started back in the bottom of the second. With two outs, Perkins launched an opposite-field home run over the wall in left-center field to give Scranton/Wilkes-Barre a 1-0 lead.
That was the only run surrendered by Syracuse starting pitcher José Butto. The 24-year-old right-hander turned in his best Triple-A performance with five and two-thirds innings of one-run baseball. Butto allowed only three hits with no walks, six strikeouts, and a career-high 98 pitches thrown, including 60 strikes. More impressively, Butto retired the final 12 batters he faced.
RailRiders starting pitcher Matt Krook was even more dominant. The 27-year-old left hander pitched six and one-third scoreless innings with four hits allowed, two walks, and eight strikeouts.
Syracuse's lone run came from the first batter to come to the plate after Krook exited the game. With one out in the top of the seventh, Nick Dini came to bat, facing Scranton/Wilkes-Barre reliever Emmanuel Ramirez. Dini launched a ball over the left-field wall that knotted the game up, 1-1, before Scranton/Wilkes-Barre's comeback.
The Mets and RailRiders will play the penultimate game of their six-game series on Saturday. First pitch is slated for 6:05 p.m.
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