Gillispie shines again as IronPigs top Rochester 7-2

Connor Gillispie is making the IronPigs’ early-season depth question harder to answer by the inning. On Friday night at Coca-Cola Park, the 28-year-old right-hander worked six more scoreless frames, stretched his shutout streak to 13 innings and pushed Lehigh Valley to a 7-2 win over Rochester that looked less like a hot streak and more like a starter building a case.

The first two batters reached, but Gillispie escaped without damage after a pickoff and a double play erased the early threat. He then settled in and retired the final 10 hitters he faced, allowing only three hits and one walk while striking out six. The outing earned him a third straight win and left him 3-0 with a 0.00 ERA, 15 strikeouts and a 0.62 WHIP over 13.0 innings to open the season.

For a club that already looks like it can win in different ways, Gillispie’s work mattered as much as the final score. Lehigh Valley followed Thursday’s 8-2 win over Rochester with another game controlled by its starter, keeping the bullpen’s workload light and extending the IronPigs’ winning streak to five. The club improved to 9-4, while Rochester dropped to 6-7 after another rough night in the series.

Gillispie also gave the Phillies something worth tracking beyond the box score. MiLB lists him as a 2019 Baltimore Orioles ninth-round pick out of Virginia Commonwealth, and he made his major league debut on Aug. 4, 2024. That background makes the start feel more meaningful than a random April heater. At some point, sustained command and missed bats stop being a nice run and start looking like a roster answer, especially for an organization that often needs dependable innings in the next-man-up lane.

Lehigh Valley gave him plenty of support. Pedro León opened the second with an infield single and later scored on Garrett Stubbs’ dash from second to home, while Liover Peguero followed with an RBI double to get the scoring started. In the sixth, Caleb Ricketts delivered the swing of the night, launching his first Triple-A home run for three runs. Peguero added another RBI hit in the same inning, and Sergio Alcántara later chipped in with a groundout RBI before Rochester scratched out two runs in the ninth.

Ricketts and Peguero each finished with two RBIs, and the IronPigs kept stacking enough quality contact to make Gillispie’s effort stand up comfortably. Rochester had its own bright spot in Robert Hassell III, who entered hitting .355 on the road through his first seven road games and had 22 of his 57 Triple-A hits at Coca-Cola Park, but Friday belonged to Lehigh Valley’s pitcher. Gillispie’s pickoff of Christian Franklin, which he said was huge and credited Stubby for calling, was the kind of detail that turns a good start into the one that gets noticed.