Home runs doom Clippers

Railriders 11, Clippers 6

The first pitch from the Clippers’ Michael Peoples at Huntington Park on Tuesday was delivered at 7:05 p.m. Within a few minutes, Scranton/wilkesBarre had lit up the scoreboard.

Cameron Maybin hit the first pitch for a single, Thairo Estrada hit the next one for a double, and then Tyler Wade cleared the bases with a three-run homer on the fourth pitch of the game. Scranton went on to hit five more homers in an 11-6 win in front of 11,555, the Clippers’ largest home crowd this season.

Clint Frazier singled after Wade’s homer and later came around to score on a sacrifice fly by Mike Ford to make it 4-0. It was the first of Frazier’s four hits, which included two home runs.

In the second, the Clippers got a solo home run by Yu Chang, his sixth of the season, and loaded the bases with two outs, but Ka’ai Tom popped out to end the threat.

Peoples (7-4) shut down the Railriders until the fifth, when Estrada blasted a two-run homer and Frazier added a solo shot to make it 7-1. Kyle Higashioka and Mike Ford followed with singles to end Peoples’ night, but reliever Argenis Angulo got out the next two batters to end the inning.

“They barreled three balls out of the first four pitches, but Peoples settled down after that,” Clippers manager Tony Mansolino said. “Overall, it was probably more Scranton’s offense than Peoples.”

The Clippers rallied in the fifth. Mark Mathias doubled to left and reached third on a single by Tom. Daniel Johnson followed with a single to score Mathias, and Brandon Barnes singled to score Tom and cut the deficit to 7-3. Brady Lail (1-0) replaced Scranton starter Chance Adams, who struck out Bobby Bradley, got Chang to foul out and then got out Ryan Flaherty on a ground ball to first to end the threat.

The single by Johnson extended his streak of reaching base to 33 consecutive games. He has reached base in 48 of his 50 games with the Clippers.

Maybin extended the lead to 8-3 in the sixth when he hit a solo homer, and a bloop single by Estrada and an RBI double by Frazier made it 9-3.

The Clippers came back with three in the bottom of the sixth when Eric Haase and Mathias singled and Tom doubled to make it 9-4. Johnson hit a sacrifice fly to score Mathias, and Barnes hit an RBI single. But Bradley struck out swinging to end the inning. The Clippers stranded nine runners.

“We had our shots and we had the guys we wanted up there, it just didn’t go in our favor,” Mansolino said. “But you’ve got to be pleased when you’re losing 7-1 in the fifth and you get into the eighth or ninth inning and feel like you have a shot. I think that’s the positive takeaway from tonight.”

Scranton added a pair of solo homers in the top of the ninth, by Frazier and Breyvic Valera.