The Syracuse Chiefs, the Triple-A affiliate of the Washington Nationals, were beaten 2-1, by the Indianapolis Indians on Tuesday night at Alliance Bank Stadium. Eury Perez's run-scoring single in the eighth to score Zach Walters accounted for Syracuse's only offense.
Despite taking the loss, Tanner Roark continued the Chiefs' recent run of stellar starting pitching. Although the right-hander allowed five baserunners over the first four innings, Roark kept the Indians off of the scoreboard. Roark rang up seven strikeouts in the opening four frames, including a stretch of four in a row.
Indianapolis (78-53), however, finally broke through offensively in the fifth. Tony Sanchez singled to start the inning off and reached second base thanks to a sacrifice bunt by pitcher Rick VandenHurk. Brock Holt's ensuing grounder to the mound put Sanchez in a pickle on the bases. While the catcher was thrown out attempting to reach third base, Holt ended up at second on the 1-6-5 fielder's choice. With two outs, Chase d'Arnaud delivered the biggest hit of the night - a two-run homer that carried the fence in left field to put the visitors up 2-0.
Roark recovered from d'Arnaud's homer and left the game after six innings of two-run ball. The Illinois native fanned a team season-high 10 batters, while walking only one.
Unfortunately for the Chiefs, Roark's counterpart, VandenHurk was every bit as good. The 6-foot-5 righty gave up only two hits in seven and one-third innings, as he struck out eight.
Syracuse (63-69) eventually managed to push across its lone run in the eighth. Walters reached first to lead the inning off when second baseman Brock Holt mishandled a grounder. After the error, VandenHurk, walked Jim Negrych to put runners on first and second. VandenHurk exited at that point in favor of righty reliever Evan Meek. Meanwhile, Josh Johnson entered for Syracuse as a pinch-hitter and successfully bunted the runners to second and third. That set the stage for Perez's RBI hit to bring the Chiefs within a run, 2-1, and put Negrych at third as the tying run. With Corey Brown batting, though, Perez was thrown out trying to steal second for the second out of the inning. Brown then grounded out to Holt to end the inning.
While Mike MacDougal, Atahualpa Severino, and Erik Davis combined to throw three scoreless innings of relief for Syracuse, Meek and Tim Wood teamed up out of the Indianapolis bullpen to prevent the Chiefs from coming back.
After a day off on Wednesday, the Chiefs travel to Gwinnett on Thursday for a 7:05 date against the Braves. Zach Duke is scheduled to start for Syracuse against Gwinnett's Sean Gilmartin.
**Courtesy Syracuse Chiefs**
