Bluefish suffer third straight loss

By DARRELL HENRY

For the first time in franchise history, the York Revolution improve to 3-0, and they do it with their third straight win in a one-run situation, beating the Bridgeport Bluefish 3-2 in front of 3,977 fans at Sovereign Bank Stadium in York. The Revs now stand alone in first place in the Freedom Division, and lead the league with 13 one-run victories.  They’ll go for a four-game sweep to begin the second half on Monday night at 7 p.m.

The Revs got on the board in the second, as Matt Rogelstad led off with a double to left, moved to third on Matt Esquivel’s deep fly ball to right, and scored on Ryan Goleski’s sac fly to right field.

Bridgeport tied the game at 1-1 in the third as Ryner Bautista homered inside the right field foul pole against his former club, but the Revs came right back in the bottom of the inning.

Carl Loadenthal singled with one out off Bridgeport starter Esteban Yan in the bottom of the third, and P.J. Rose then smoked an RBI double into the right field corner, bringing Laodenthal the whole way around from first to score, as the Revs regained the lead at 2-1.

The Revs scored an important insurance run in the seventh.  Each of York’s five hits prior to that point had gone to left-hand hitters, but three singles in the seventh all came from right-hand batters to produce the run.  Esquivel led off with a grounder up the middle on the first pitch.  With one out, John Purdom smashed a hard grounder off the third base bag, that ricocheted into left, putting runners at the corners.  Anthony Manuel then laced the first pitch he saw into left, picking up the RBI as Esquivel came across.

York starter Dave Gassner (4-7) allowed just one run on four hits in 6.1 innings to earn the win.  He has allowed just four earned runs over 25.0 IP in his last four starts, and now owns a 2.91 ERA over his last 11 starts.

Travis Phelps stranded two runners, recording the final two outs of the seventh, and Jason Kershner worked a 1-2-3 eighth, setting it up for closer Bob Zimmermann in the ninth.

After walking Tyrone Pendergrass to start the inning, and uncorking a wild pitch while falling behind Luis Lopez 3-0, Zimmermann was met by pitching coach Tippy Martinez on the mound.  Following the visit, Zimmermann came back to run the count full on Lopez, and after a couple of foul balls, retired him on a fly ball to right for the first out.  He then struck out Brandon Sing on a vicious slider for the second out, and after Jesse Hoorelbeke narrowly missed an opposite field homer that would have tied the game, pounding a double that only made the score closer, Zimmermann retired Luis Rodriguez on a foul out to right to secure the win.  He improved to 6-for-6 in save opportunities, all in one-run decisions.

Yan (6-3) suffered the loss, despite tying for the league lead with his fourth complete game of the season.

Notes: The three-game winning streak matches a season-high for the third time, all in the last three weeks.  The Revs will look to make it four straight on Monday evening, and earn their first series sweep of the season.  Lefty Shane Youman will face Bridgeport right-hander Kyle Jackson