Major League Opening Day may be pushed back 24 hours for the Yankees, but the minor-league season is underway – and the Baby Bombers are 1-0.
Tuesday was Opening Day for the Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders, and they downed the Syracuse Mets 5-0 in the first mini-Subway Series battle of the season at NBT Bank Stadium in Syracuse. It was SWB’s first Opening Day win since 2018.
Matt Krook, tabbed to be the Opening Day starter in a rotation that will include touted prospects Luis Gil, Deivi Garcia, and Hayden Wesneski, outdueled Mets top 10 prospect Thomas Szapucki, tossing five shutout innings while striking out seven. The lefty, who threw 106 innings between SWB and Double-A Somerset last season, allowed just two hits and a walk over his five frames, with only one Met even reaching scoring position; that came on a one-out double in the third, but Krook retired the next eight in a row to end his night.
At the dish, the RailRiders got the offense going early, as No. 2 prospect (and No. 2 batter) Oswald Peraza homered to give SWB a 1-0 lead just two hitters into the game. Ronald Guzman added an RBI single after Oswaldo Cabrera’s double to make it 2-0 after 1, and Estevan Florial capped the scoring with a three-run homer in the eighth.
Behind Krook on the mound, Reggie McClain (1.1 IP, 2 H, 1 BB, 1 K) and Trevor Lane (0.2 IP, 1K) held it down until the eighth, when Greg Weissert took over and struck out five of the seven batters he faced for a two-inning save.
Florial and Peraza’s homers and Guzman’s single were their only hits on the night, and elsewhere at the plate, catcher Max McDowell was the hitting star, going 3-for-4 with a run scored to account for nearly half of SWB’s eight hits.
Much like last season, the Triple-A schedule includes six-game series running Tuesday to Sunday with Mondays off, so the RailRiders have five more games in Syracuse before the team returns to NEPA on April 12 to open their home slate with a six-game series against Norfolk.
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