Kemp homers, IronPigs snap skid with 4-2 win over Rochester
Otto Kemp’s fourth homer turned a one-run lead into insurance, and Lehigh Valley used a clean bullpen finish to halt a three-game skid with a 4-2 win over Rochester.
Otto Kemp gave Lehigh Valley the swing it needed, and the IronPigs used it to stop a three-game slide before it could turn into something bigger. Kemp’s eighth-inning solo homer, his fourth of the season, stretched a one-run lead into a 4-2 cushion and capped a 4-2 win over the Rochester Red Wings on Friday night at Coca-Cola Park.
The victory mattered because the IronPigs entered at 28-33 against a Rochester club sitting at 37-23. Lehigh Valley was coming off three straight losses, but it played like a team that knew the next mistake could snowball. Instead, the offense took the small openings Rochester gave it and the pitching staff shut the door after the fifth.
Lehigh Valley struck first when Bryan De La Cruz scored on a wild pitch, but Rochester answered with two runs in the fifth to grab a 2-1 lead. Robert Hassell III doubled home Andrew Pinckney to tie it, then came home on Phillip Glasser’s sacrifice fly. The IronPigs answered right back in the bottom of the inning when Gabriel Rincones Jr. lined a two-out RBI single that brought in Robert Moore and made it 2-2.
The real hinge came in the sixth. Kemp and De La Cruz singled to start the inning, Christian Cairo moved both runners over with a sacrifice bunt, and Carter Kieboom lifted a sacrifice fly that brought Kemp home for the go-ahead run. Kemp’s homer later gave the bullpen breathing room, and that mattered because the relievers were excellent the rest of the way.
Bryse Wilson worked four scoreless innings and, according to the club, stretched his scoreless streak to nine frames. Chuck King followed with three shutout innings, striking out four without allowing a hit to improve to 3-3, and Seth Johnson finished with a scoreless ninth for his sixth save. In 2:33, with 9,059 fans watching under clear skies and 86-degree heat, Lehigh Valley delivered the kind of clean, low-drama win that can reset a season’s mood in one night. The clubs were set to meet again Saturday at 6:45 p.m. with Alan Rangel scheduled to face Andry Lara.
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