Austin Wells homers twice in RailRiders’ loss to Columbus

Austin Wells did exactly what the Yankees wanted to see from a rehabbing catcher: he squared the ball up twice, drove one to straightaway center and showed the kind of bat speed that plays at any level. The problem for Scranton/Wilkes-Barre was everything around him. Columbus answered with a relentless middle-inning surge and beat the RailRiders 7-5 at Huntington Park, turning Wells’ loud day into a reminder that one impact bat is not enough when the pitching staff cannot hold the game together.

Wells finished 2-for-5 with three RBIs and opened the scoring by launching the first pitch he saw from Pedro Avila over the fence for a 376-foot homer. He went deep again in the seventh, a 392-foot two-run shot that cut the Clippers’ lead to 7-4 and kept the RailRiders alive. For New York, that is the point of the rehab assignment: Wells was placed on the Yankees’ 10-day injured list June 6 with cervical headaches, began his assignment with Scranton/Wilkes-Barre on June 16, and was scheduled to stay with the club at least through Friday’s doubleheader in Columbus. The box score was the kind of evidence the Yankees can actually use.

The RailRiders still could not solve Columbus’ own offensive eruption. Cooper Ingle, the Cleveland prospect, put together a three-homer, four-hit game and drove in four runs as the Clippers pulled away. A four-run sixth inning pushed Columbus into a 7-2 cushion, and Christian Cornielle’s Scranton/Wilkes-Barre debut ended with three runs allowed on seven hits over four innings. That left Wells and the offense chasing a game that had already slipped into the wrong hands.

Scranton/Wilkes-Barre did get secondary production. Oswaldo Cabrera also went 2-for-5, Duke Ellis added two hits, and Cabrera stole home on a double steal in the eighth, one of those high-risk, high-absurdity plays that can briefly jolt a dugout. It was not enough against Franco Aleman, who closed it out for his seventh save, and the RailRiders dropped back to .500 at 35-35 while Columbus improved to 39-31. The loss evened the series at one win apiece and left the Yankees with the more useful takeaway: Wells looked ready, even if the RailRiders were not.