The Lehigh Valley IronPigs (7-4) were back at PNC Field for game five against the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders (8-3). Lehigh Valley has lost two straight games to the RailRiders. The starting pitchers for the game were Adonis Medina (1-0, 4.50 ERA) for the IronPigs and Mike Montgomery for the RailRiders (0-1, 8.22 ERA).
IronPigs designated hitter Travis Jankowski started the top of the first inning with a walk. The next batter up for the IronPigs was second baseman Luke Williams. He hit a single to center field to move Jankowski to second base. Center fielder Mickey Moniak was able to move both runners with a sacrifice bunt for the first out.
Next up for Lehigh Valley was left fielder Ryan Cordell; he struck out swinging. Shortstop C.J. Chatham singled on a line drive out to left field which brought home both runners to put Lehigh Valley up 2-0.
Moving ahead to the top of the third inning, IronPigs second baseman Luke Williams started the inning with a triple. Center fielder Mickey Moniak grounded out to first base for the first out. Lehigh Valley left fielder Ryan Cordell brought Williams home with a ground out to third base and extend the IronPigs’ lead to 3-0. Shortstop C.J. Chatham got his second hit of the game to left field. Lehigh Valley were unable to add any more runs in the third inning.
The IronPigs added two more runs at the top of the fourth inning. Right fielder Cornelius Randolph hit a single to right field, followed by a double from catcher Jack Conley. Designated hitter Travis Jankowski was next to clear the bases with a single to left field. Lehigh Valley was now leading 5-0.
The RailRiders started to chip away Lehigh Valley’s lead in the bottom of the fourth inning. RailRiders center fielder Socrates Brito started the inning by hitting a single. Then Medina threw a wild pitch to move Brito to second base. Medina got Derek Dietrich to pop out for the first out before left fielder Ryan LaMarre singled to center field to cut the lead to 5-1.
Medina got the next two batters out to end the fourth inning. Moving ahead to the bottom of the fifth inning, Medina walked RailRiders center fielder Estevan Florial. He then gave up a two-run home run to first baseman Chris Gittens, which cut the IronPigs lead to 5-3. This would be it for Medina. He finished the game going five innings, five hits allowed, three earned runs, two walks, and two strikeouts.
The IronPigs offense didn’t add any more runs for the rest of the game. In the bottom of the sixth inning, Archie Bradley came in to pitch. Bradley struck out Derek Dietrich, then gave up a single to Ryan LaMarre, a walk to catcher Rob Brantley, and a single to Armando Alverez to score LaMarre to make it a one-run game.
Bradley got the next two batters to pop out, with Lehigh Valley still leading 5-4. In the last three innings, Bryan Mitchell pitched two innings, and Neftali Feliz closed out the game to give the IronPigs a 5-4 win. The win went to Adonis Medina, Mike Montgomery suffered the loss, and Feliz earned the save.
The IronPigs will finish the series at PNC Field tomorrow with Spencer Howard (0-0, 0.00) on the mound against Deivi Garcia (1-0, 5.40) of the RailRiders at 1:05 pm on MiLB.com.
