Lombard Jr. homers early, RailRiders blank Worcester 1-0

One swing was enough because Adam Kloffenstein made sure Worcester never found a second chance. George Lombard Jr. turned the second pitch of the bottom of the first into a leadoff home run, and the RailRiders spent the rest of Sunday protecting that lone run in a 1-0 win at PNC Field.

Kloffenstein drove the game from there. The 25-year-old right-hander from Magnolia, Texas, struck out a season-best 10 over six scoreless innings, allowed just three hits and kept the WooSox from ever turning traffic on the bases into damage. Worcester put runners on the corners in the fourth and fifth, but Kloffenstein escaped both innings with inning-ending double plays, a pair of outs that kept the game from changing shape. Scranton/Wilkes-Barre struck out Worcester 15 times as a staff and held the Red Sox to three hits.

The bullpen finished the job without a misstep. Bradley Hanner covered two more scoreless innings, and Peter Strzelecki earned the save, his second of the season. For a RailRiders club that had beaten Worcester 7-2 the night before to snap a four-game losing streak, the back-to-back results mattered as much as the scores themselves. Scranton/Wilkes-Barre did not need a burst of offense to stack victories, only enough early life to let its pitching take over.

Lombard’s homer carried added weight because it was his second of the series and his second of the week, another reminder of why the Yankees’ No. 1 prospect has become a name that travels quickly through Triple-A lineups. The game moved fast, lasting 2 hours, 4 minutes, with first pitch at 1:39 p.m. in front of 3,929 fans at PNC Field. Alec Gamboa took the loss for Worcester after allowing one earned run on three hits over four innings with four strikeouts.

The shutout was Scranton/Wilkes-Barre’s fourth of the 2026 season, and it fit a familiar script against Worcester. The RailRiders also beat the WooSox 1-0 at Polar Park on May 15, 2024, their first 1-0 win since April 17, 2022 against Norfolk. Sunday’s version looked just as tight, and for a club trying to steady itself, that kind of win can say more than a lopsided box score ever does.