Home hurler
Pawtucket rookie Kyle Weiland will vie for his third pair of consecutive wins this season as he wages his third start against the Rochester Red Wings tonight.
He previously lost at home in his Triple-A debut on April 8, authorizing four earned runs and seven hits in a mere three innings-pitched. His immediate successor, Tony Pena, didn’t fare much better in the subsequent three innings, wherein the Red Wings tacked on three more runs on six hits en route to a 7-2 triumph.
On an April 24 visit to Frontier Field, Weiland garnered credit for a 9-3 win, maintaining a one-hit shutout until Rochester catcher Rene Rivera led off the bottom of the sixth with a home run.
Weiland finished that night with a line of 6.0 IP, two hits, one earned run, two walks, and three strikeouts.
More recently, Weiland has lasted at least 5.0 innings in each of his last 10 games, but no more in each of the last two.
For the second time this season, Weiland will be opposed by Eric Hacker, who claimed credit for the “W” in the aforementioned April 8 card.
Guest starter
Hacker is coming off one of his better outings of the year with Rochester, a 7-2 triumph last Thursday over the visiting Charlotte Knights that snapped his personal three-game losing streak and gave him his third winning decision of the year.
Hacker’s only other win on the year, an 8-0 whitewash of Toledo June 2, was patently his best yet. He lasted an even six innings while only allowing four hits, although he also yielded four additional baserunners by way of the walk.
Each of Hacker’s last two winning efforts has seen him log a season-high six strikeouts. In his previous visit to McCoy, he whiffed five PawSox in as many innings-pitched, including Drew Sutton twice. And he allowed a mere two hits, both of them doubles that merely amounted to a stranded runner in the fourth and fifth stanza.
