Heston Kjerstad collected his first Triple-A hit Thursday night and scored the eventual winning run on Jordan Westburg’s triple as the Norfolk Tides beat the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders 5-3 before 3,226 fans Thursday night.
The International League-leading Tides (41-17) hadn’t played since Sunday. They were off Monday, and games were postponed Tuesday and Wednesday because of poor air conditions stemming from Canadian wildfires. Thursday’s game was delayed for 27 minutes because of rain, but since it helped the smoke clear, the precipitation was somewhat welcomed.
Kjerstad, a Baltimore prospect summoned Monday from Double-A Bowie, was 0 for 4 with two strikeouts and had stranded five runners in his Tides debut before cracking a long single off Greg Weissert with one out in the ninth inning in a 3-3 game.
He then scored on a triple to center by Westburg, who came home for the night’s final run on a Joey Ortiz single.
Norfolk left-hander DL Hall shut out the RailRiders for 3 1/3 innings and struck out three in his start, though he walked four.
Reed Garrett (5-1), a Richmond native, pitched two shutout innings for the victory. He lowered his earned-run average to 1.66.
Home runs by Ortiz and Hudson Haskin gave Norfolk a 2-0 lead in the fourth. Elijah Durham’s two-run single to right in the fifth off reliever Eduard Bazardo tied the game at 2 for Scranton, the New York Yankees’ top affiliate.
The RailRiders went ahead on former MLB regular Franchy Cordero’s RBI single in the sixth, but Jose Godoy — recently traded by the Yankees to Baltimore — brought home Daz Cameron with the tying run by singling in the eighth.
The series’ second game is set for 6:35 p.m. Friday.
