Red Wings Hang On to Top PawSox

Red Wings starter Jeff Manship breezed through the first inning Thursday, helped out by his defense. Catcher Rene Rivera threw out Jose Iglesias on a steal attempt, after Iglesias hit a first pitch single; and Danny Valencia made a nice diving stop to his left to rob Jason Repko of a hit.

The Wings got a pair of singles in their half of the first against Pawtucket starter Tony Pena, Jr. When Pena walked Sean Burroughs to load the bases, the Wings had a great chance to grab a lead, but Pena struck out Danny Valencia to end the early scoring threat.

Manship faced trouble in the top of the second when he loaded the bases with two outs, but Nate Spears flew out to center field keeping Pawtucket scoreless.

In the top of the fourth, Manship escaped another PawSox scoring threat when he caused Che-Hsuan Lin to ground into a double play with runners on first and second, keeping the game a scoreless tie.

Luis Perdomo relieved Manship to start the top of the fifth. Manship pitched four innings allowing 4 hits and 4 walks, with 1 strikeout. With Perdomo pitching, former Red Wings Repko hit a solo home run to take a 1-0 lead.

The Wings broke the game open in the bottom of the fifth scoring six runs to take a 6-1 lead. The surge was sparked by Pedro Florimon when he hit an RBI single to score Brian Dinkelman. Matt Carson continued the scoring when he hit a double to score Tsuyoshi Nishioka and Florimon, making the score 3-1 Wings. The next two runs came on two wild pitches by Pawtucket reliever Daniel Bard, extending the Wings lead to 5-1. The sixth run of the inning came when Valencia hit a RBI single to score Sean Burroughs.

Brendan Wise was able to get out of trouble in the top of the seventh when he got ground outs from both Iglesias and Repko to leave two runners stranded, keeping the score 6-1 Wings.

In the top of the eighth Pawtucket added one run when Lin hit a single to score Nate Spears, to make the score 6-2 Wings.

Pawtucket staged a late rally against Wise, and a two-out, two-run single by Alex Hassan brought an end to Wise's night. Caleb Thielbar took over with the tying runs in scoring position, and promptly walked J. C. Linares to load the bases. But Thielbar struck out Che-Hsuan Lin on three pitches to end the save, and pick up his first Triple-A save.

Burroughs was replaced by Ray Chang after he was hit by a pitch in the fifth inning.