SCRANTON/WILKES-BARRE RAILRIDERS (33-23) @ BUFFALO BISONS (24-33)

RHP Drew Hutchison (4-3, 5.65) vs. RHP Graham Spraker (Triple-A Debut)

|  Game No. 57  |  Sahlen Field  |  Buffalo, NY  |  June 6, 2019  |  First Pitch 7:05 p.m.  |

BUFFALO, NY (June 5, 2019) -- The Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders pitching staff combined to face just three batters over the minimum Wednesday night against the Buffalo Bisons, notching a pair of wins with 14 shutout innings over their International League North rivals.
RHP Chance Adams got the start for SWB in Game One of the night and scattered three hits and a walk over seven shutout innings. It was the fifth straight quality start for Adams who has picked up four wins in that time and has surrendered just 3 ER on 17 hits in 31.2 IP while lowering his ERA from 10.32 after three starts (13 ER in 11.1 IP) to 3.35. It was Adams first career shutout victory. The offense in the first game came from RBI hits from Breyvic Valera and Brad Miller, plus a sacrifice fly by Ryan McBroom for the 3-0 win.
Game Two featured Nestor Cortes allowing just a one-out single by Jordan Patterson in the third inning over his 6.0 innings of work. The southpaw was making his first appearance for the RailRiders since early May, spending about a month’s worth of time up in the big leagues with the Yankees, and looked like he hadn’t missed a beat. He struck out eight batters on the night and has now allowed just two hits over 13.1 innings while striking out 17 men the last two times he has taken the ball for Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.
Overall, Buffalo hitters were 4-for-44 (.091 AVG) on the night with one walk (.111 OBP) and never had a runner reach second base the entire evening. Scranton/Wilkes-Barre entered Wednesday night with a pair of shutouts over the first 54 games of the season, and with a pair of shutout wins over the Buffalo Bisons they are now just one shutout behind the Durham Bulls (5 SHO) for the league lead in that category.
WHAT A NIGHT: The Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders tossed a pair of shutouts Wednesday night, with Chance Adams, Nestor Cortes and J.P. Feyereisen facing just three batters over the minimum while recording 42 outs. It was the first time the RailRiders posted a full doubleheader of shutout baseball since 7/2/2011 @ Pawtucket. That day, DJ Mitchell tossed seven innings of one-hit ball to outduel Brandon Duckworth in Game 1, 7-0. In the second game, Pawtucket managed three hits off George Kontos, Logan Kensing and Randy Flores in a 3-0 loss. A year ago they were shutout in a pair of games by Lehigh Valley in which Enyel De Los Santos and Brandon Liebrandt shut down the RailRiders April 29.
DOUBLEDIPPING: By June 5th of last year, the RailRiders had played just two doubleheaders and finished the year playing two games on the same date eight times over the course of the entire season. Wednesday’s doubleheader was the sixth time in the first 56 games of the year that the RailRiders would have played multiple games on the same day. There are three more doubleheaders on the schedule in the coming weeks, and the RailRiders are expecting to have played nine doubleheaders over the first 87 games of the year -- exceeding their total from all of 2018 just over halfway into the year.
RAILREHABBERS: INF Didi Gregorius joins OF Aaron Hicks on the list of Yankees rehabbers for the RailRiders this season, and had gone 1-for-21 in the first five games in which he has played before going 2-for-4 in Game 1 of Wednesday’s DH. He was given a day off Monday in Buffalo and was back in the lineup Tuesday night against LHP Ryan Feierabend and finished 0-for-5. At the outset of his rehab assignment with the RailRiders it was stated that he would like wrap up his assignment by playing Wednesday, getting Thursday off and then returning to the Yankees for Friday’s game when they head to Cleveland to take on the Indians. A year ago, SWB had 10 different Yankees play games with them: Greg Bird (INF), A.J. Cole (P), Brandon Drury (INF), Clint Frazier (OF), Aaron Hicks (OF), Tommy Kahnle (P), Billy McKinney (OF), Gary Sanchez (C), Masahiro Tanaka (P), Adam Warren (P). In his two games with SWB before returning to New York, Hicks was 3-for-7 with 2 2B, HR, RBI, 4 R, BB, 1-for-1 SB.
ON-BASE STREAKS, EXTENDED: Scranton/Wilkes-Barre enters Thursday against the Buffalo Bisons with a number of lengthy on-base streaks intact. The double-digit on-base streak of Brad Miller ended at 27G after he went 1-for-3 in the opener of Wednesday’s DH, but was kept off the bases in Game 2. Mike Ford (26G), Breyvic Valera (19G) and Ryan McBroom (14G) are still rolling along with theirs streaks, with Ford’s as the longest active streak in the International League, ahead of Pawtucket’s Sam Travis (25G) who is currently up in the big leagues with the Red Sox. 
WHAT A STRETCH: Early in the season, the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders had their schedule broken up by a handful of postponements and suspensions due to weather -- seven over the first five weeks of the season. Though many of the games were made up the following day, it’s time to make up a good number of those games over the next few weeks. Following the day-off May 20th, the RailRiders began a stretch on the 21st against the Pawtucket Red Sox that features 23 games over 20 days before their next scheduled off day. All 23 games come against each of their five IL North Division rivals. They are currently 12-5 on this run of games, with one game against Rochester postponed until July 5th due to weather.