The Norfolk Tides rallied to beat the Rochester Plates 6-4 in 12 innings Thursday night at Frontier Field, in the historic first ever Plates Night. The paid attendance of 13,281 was the third largest regular season crowd in Frontier Field history. With Lehigh Valley losing at home to Charlotte, the Plates remain one game out of the wild card playoff spot. The series continues Friday night at 7:05 p.m., with fireworks after the game
The Plates got on the board first in the bottom of the first inning after Matt Hague and ByungHo Park both collected back-to-back RBI plate appearances at the expense of Norfolk pitcher Jayson Aquino that made it 2-0 Rochester early in the ballgame.
Stephen Gonsalves came out of the gates strong in his Rochester debut by retiring the first 10 batters he faced in order. He struck out three of them before surrendering his first hit of the game to Chris Johnson in the top of the fourth. Johnson later scored on a single by Francisco Pena cutting the Rochester lead to 2-1
Aquino was relieved in the top of the fifth by Chris Lee. Aquino finished with 4.2 innings pitched, giving up five hits and two runs with two walks. He struck out four on 74 pitches, 47 of them for strikes.
Chris Johnson tied the game at 2-2 in the top of sixth with a solo home run.
Hague led off the bottom of the sixth with a single. With that single, Hague extended his streak of reaching base safely to 23 straight games. The next two batters, Park and Niko Goodrum, both reached safely to load the bases giving Rochester a golden scoring chance with no outs. Leonardo Reginatto cashed in by delivering a two- out single that drove in both Park and Goodrum making the score 4-2 Plates.
Gonsalves delivered seven solid innings of work in his Triple-A debut, giving up four hits and two runs without a walk. He racked up seven strikeouts on 86 pitches, 59 for strikes.
Michael Tonkin worked the eighth inning, allowing a run on three singles as the Tides pulled to within a run.
John Curtiss pitched the ninth inning, and walked the first batter he faced. A single put runners at first and third with no one out, and a single from Drew Dosch tied the game at 4-4. Curtiss set down the next three batters to keep the game tied.
In the bottom of the ninth against Stefan Crichton, the Wings put runners at first and second with one out. A two-out wild pitch moved the runners up to second and third with Tommy Field at bat, and when Field was hit by a pitch the Wings had loaded the bases. J.B. Shuck’s long flyball down the left field line was caught to end the scoring bid.
Curtiss struck out the side in the 10th, and the Wings had a bases loaded, one out rally in the bottom of the inning against Matt Wotherspoon. Hague flew out, and a sharply hit ball by Park was fielded for the third out.
Drew Rucinski came on to pitch the top of the 11th, using a pair of strikeouts to work around two baserunners.
The Wings had another scoring chance in the bottom of the 11th, putting two on with one out. A double play grounder sent play to the 12th.
Mike Yastrzemski led off the 12th with a triple off Rucinski, and a broken bat bloop hit from Chris Johnson put the Tides ahead for the first time all game. They added one more run on a hit from Pedro Alvarez.
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