Worcester pulls away late, tops Syracuse 9-2 on historic Chad Tracy day

Syracuse let a chance to steady its series slip away at Polar Park, undone by a season-high 13 walks and a Worcester lineup that kept extending innings until the game broke open late. What started as a manageable 6-2 deficit turned into a 9-2 Red Sox win, with Worcester scoring in the fourth, sixth, seventh and eighth to stay in command and leave Syracuse searching for answers.

Worcester drew first blood in the fourth when Mickey Gasper bounced a bases-loaded groundout that brought home the opening run. The Red Sox added on in the sixth as Kristian Campbell lined an RBI single and Anthony Seigler followed with another groundout that pushed the margin to 3-0. By then, Syracuse starter Bryce Conley had worked four innings and allowed one run, but the Mets were already fighting uphill because their pitching staff kept putting Worcester back in traffic.

The decisive swing came in the seventh. Jason Delay singled home a run, then Nick Sogard ripped a two-run double that pushed the lead to 6-0 and turned a tight, annoying game into one Syracuse had to force its way back into. Tanner Witt absorbed two runs in the sixth, Ryan Lambert was charged with three earned runs while recording only two outs, and catcher Onix Vega took over for the eighth but gave up three more runs as the Red Sox kept stacking contact and free passes.

Syracuse finally answered in the top of the eighth. Ben Rortvedt singled, a wild pitch moved him into scoring position and Ji Hwan Bae delivered an RBI single to trim the deficit to 6-2. That was the Mets’ best push of the afternoon, and it did not last long. Worcester answered immediately in the bottom half when Delay lifted a sacrifice fly, Gasper added an RBI single and Nate Eaton followed with another run-scoring hit to seal the 9-2 finish.

The loss came in the middle of a volatile six-game set that had already swung back and forth at Polar Park, with Syracuse winning the opener, Worcester answering with a comeback, and the Mets regrouping with a shutout the day before. Instead of building on that momentum, Syracuse watched another game get away in the middle innings, the kind of collapse that exposes how hard it is to hold form in Triple-A for long.

The afternoon also became a landmark moment for Chad Tracy. After the final out, Worcester’s manager was named interim manager of the Boston Red Sox, capping a day in which he earned his 499th career minor league managerial victory. Tracy had already delivered four straight winning seasons in his first four full years at Worcester, the first time a Red Sox Triple-A manager had done that since at least the 1930s.