Mayo’s two homers not enough
Tides’ losing streak reaches five games
Despite three home runs in the first three innings, the Norfolk Tides saw their International League losing streak reach five games with a 6-4 loss Friday night to Scranton/Wilkes-Barre before 5,198 fans at Harbor Park.
Norfolk pitchers continued their season-long streak of striking out at least nine batters, but the RailRiders (8-4) improved to 4-0 in the six-game series. It continued Saturday night and is set to conclude at 1:05 p.m. today.
On a night when a former longtime groundskeeper was honored on Kenny Magner Night, Scranton scored on a Carlos Narvaez single in the top of the first. Heston Kjerstad
pulled the Tides (7-6) even in the bottom of the first with his seventh home run of the year, a blast to left field.
Coby Mayo, the next batter, followed with a solo homer. He socked another bases-empty home run in the third, putting Norfolk ahead 3-1.
The New York Yankees’ top farm club tied the game with two runs in the fourth, thanks to Everson Pereira’s solo home run and Jose Rojas’ RBI double, then got RBI doubles from Narvaez and Rojas to move ahead 5-3 in the fifth. Scranton made it 6-3 in the sixth on Caleb Durbin’s RBI double.
Losing pitcher Albert Suarez (1-1) gave up 10 hits and five runs ina4 ⅓-inning start, though he struck out seven and walked just one. Norfolk relievers Tucker Davidson, Andrew Suarez and
Kaleb Ort pitched 4 ⅔ effective innings.
Following a one-out single by Kjerstad in the eighth, Michael Pérez cut the lead to 6-4 with an RBI single, but was thrown out trying to take second on the play.
Shayne Fontana stole two bases for the Tides in his first game of the season, but Norfolk had just six hits and struck out 14 times.
Winner Will Warren gave up all three homers, but struck out eight in five innings. Yerry De Los Santos, former Dodgers regular Phil Bickford and Oddanier Mosqueda were mostly strong out of the RailRiders’ bullpen.
Note: The Baltimore Orioles optioned right-hander Jonathan Heasley to the Tides and activated right-hander Yohan Ramirez on Saturday.