RailRiders rain down homers in weather-shortened win
Jul. 3—MOOSIC — Steady rain dampened the end of the night.
Scranton/Wilkes-Barre's bats provided enough thunder during it to send their biggest crowd of the season home happy.
Estevan Florial homered twice, Oswald Peraza hit what turned into a decisive solo blast in the third inning and the RailRiders won their sixth straight game in a rain-shortened 4-3 triumph over Buffalo on Saturday night at PNC Field.
Both the RailRiders offense and starter Hayden Wesneski recovered from a difficult first inning, which saw the Bisons plate three runs against the right-hander. Two of them came on Nick Podkul's two-out chopper up the middle that gave the struggling Bisons a crooked number on the linescore after Wesneski nearly escaped a bases-loaded, no-out jam.
It didn't take long for the red-hot RailRiders to respond.
Florial's first homer of the game came on the fourth pitch thrown by Bisons starter Bowden Francis, a slider he ripped for a towering shot off the grassy berm in right field that made it 3-1. Tim Locastro followed that with a long triple to left-center that just eluded the leaping try of left fielder Nathan Lukes, and he scored two batters later on a line drive to deep center by Greg Bird.
"That was very important," Florial said. "You want to score as early as you can, as often as you can. I think that set the tone."
It didn't take long for the RailRiders to officially complete the comeback, either.
Florial led off the bottom of the third with his second round-tripper, a majestic blast that sailed over the RailHouse bar in right and off the walkway that runs behind it, bouncing off the rocks to tie the game.
On the second homer, Florial got a fastball from Francis, hitting two different pitches for those homers, which impressed his manager Doug Davis most of all. He said that likely was Florial's longest-hit home run as a RailRider.
Spectacular as the drive was, the excitement of it to him came in the fact that he has been able to simplify things so well during an extended hot streak. He had a 1.000 OPS since May 31 coming into the game, then built on that with the two homers.
"It means I'm sticking to my plan," Florial said. "It's about executing what you planned."
Ultimately, Wesneski ended up with one of his best outings of the season.
He survived that first inning to last five, striking out a season-high nine batters with the help of a dominant fastball that Davis said he spotted better as the outing progressed.
Wesneski struck out two batters in every inning but his 1-2-3 third.
"They squirted a couple balls through the infield (in the first inning), and you can't do much to prevent that," Davis said. "But when he started to create a difference from the knees to the chest and utilize the whole box, I think he was very effective tonight."
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