Worcester edges Scranton/Wilkes-Barre 1-0 behind Seigler homer, 14 strikeouts

Anthony Seigler decided the whole night with one swing, and everything after that turned into a lesson in how a 1-0 game can feel brutally one-sided. His solo homer to right field in the top of the first inning stood up as the only run at PNC Field on Thursday night, lifting the Worcester Red Sox past the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders and deepening a frustrating stretch for SWB, which was held to one hit.

That early blast was all Worcester needed, but it was hardly all it got from the mound. Carlos Lagrange, the Yankees’ No. 4 prospect, absorbed the damage and then largely settled the game down. He allowed that lone run over 5.2 innings, struck out six and flashed the kind of velocity that kept the RailRiders chasing, with his fastball consistently touching the high 90s. At one point, he retired 11 batters in a row before being lifted in the sixth, a run of dominance that would have won most nights if the lineup had given him anything at all.

Instead, Worcester starter Jack Anderson made sure the RailRiders never found a second crack at the game. Anderson worked 4.2 scoreless innings, allowed only one hit and struck out eight, turning Scranton/Wilkes-Barre’s offense into a sequence of empty at-bats. The WooSox bullpen handled the rest, and the final line was as stark as it gets: one hit, zero runs, 14 strikeouts for the home team.

Scranton/Wilkes-Barre did get a flicker of late life in the ninth when Kenedy Corona reached on an error, but even that barely turned into a threat. Tommy Kahnle shut the door for Worcester and recorded the save, ending a game that felt decided by the first pitch of consequence and never really reopened.

The RailRiders did plenty on the mound to deserve better. Carson Coleman added 1.1 scoreless innings, and Peter Strzelecki threw a clean inning in his SWB debut, giving the pitching staff a full night of support behind Lagrange. But in a game this tight, one missed pitch was the whole story. Worcester had already beaten Scranton/Wilkes-Barre in a 12-inning game earlier in the month at Polar Park, and this one was even more painful for SWB because the pitching gave it every chance to hang around.

The series moved on with Elmer Rodríguez slated to start for Scranton/Wilkes-Barre against Worcester left-hander Michael Sansone, but the opener left the RailRiders with a familiar problem: when the offense disappears, even a dominant pitching line can turn into a loss.