By Tiffany Williams –
Friday afternoon in Worcester, MA. the Worcester Red Sox hosted the Buffalo Bisons for their first doubleheader of the 2024 season. The two clubs first met on Tuesday afternoon for the Worcester Red Sox home opener, and Worcester lost that game, 0-2. In Friday’s DH, Wocester grabbed a 9-7 win in game one. However the Buffalo Bisons took game two with a 5-0 win.
After two days off, with both game one and game two of this six-game series postponed due to weather conditions, WooSox Manager Chad Tracy and his family on Thursday enjoyed some family time bowling while some WooSox players showed up to what looked like a winter wonderland at Polar Park, making snowmen, making snow angels and throwing some snow balls.
All the while the WoSox Grounds Crew worked through the day and night to clear the snow and get Polar Park ready for Friday’s doubleheader.
Game one Friday was the WooSox and Bisons regular scheduled game, and Worcester owned a 9-7 win against Buffalo.
Top of the first Addison Barger broke the seal to get the Bisons into this game, collecting his third double of the season to help Rafael Lantigua score and put the Bisons out front 1-0. But in the bottom of the second, Romy Gonzalez broke the seal for Worcester and collected their first run to tie the game 1-1.
Mark Contreras owned the second run of the game for Worcester to grab a 1-2 lead.
Bottom of the third Nick Sogard, Romy Gonzalez and Mark Contreras each collected runs to put Worcester on top 1-5.
Romy Gonzalez, in the bottom of the fourth, smacked a 95.3 mph four-seam fastball 411 feet into the Berm, to record his first grand slam of the 2024 season, driving in David Hamilton, Chase Meidroth and Nick Sogard and putting Worcester out front 1-9.
Top of the seventh the Bisons added six runs, first with Spencer Horwitz and Orelvis Martinez scoring, and then Nathan Lukes answered back to Romy Gonzalez’s grand slam hitting a grand slam 103.8 mph, 376 feet to right field driving in in Damiano Palmegiani, Payton Henry and Cam Eden.
Richard Fitts, who was acquired from the New York with Greg Weissert and Nicholas Judice in exchange for Alex Verdugo in December 2023, and participated in the Red Sox Rookie Development Program in January 2024, made his triple-A debut for Worcester in game one of Friday’s DH. Fitts went 4.1 innings, allowing six hits and one run (Rafael Lantigua). He threw 78 pitches, 53 were strikes, and he struck out three.
At Friday’s press gaggle before the DH, WooSox Manager Chad Tracy was asked what he’s liked from Fitts so far, and Tracy said, “I mean, I’ve only seen a couple outings. I saw one on the backfields in spring training, and I went down there with a big league hitter to kind of monitor. The guy was doing rehab at bats, and he happened to be pitching in an inner squad. And then I saw him pitch in a, like, three-inning live BP before we left. So big, tall, strong dude. Really good changeup. The velocity’s there. Typically command is good. He’s in the zone working on a slider, you know, trying to improve the slider, the secondary. But he’s got a couple offerings already that are plus-plus, and he usually lives in the strike zone. And then with the frame of him and the things they’re working on, like, you know, we got a good one. So I’m looking forward to watching him throw today. I know he’s dying to pitch as we’ve been sitting around here watching it snow. Yeah, he’s ready to throw.”
Following Friday’s DH Tracy was asked about his initial reaction to Fitts first start, and Tracy said, “Good, the biggest thing is the early innings, just having trouble getting a feel and just everything, whether it was change, slide, fast, just kind of pulling it, glove side pulls. And he got behind in some counts, he was just behind in the count, counts got deep, and that drove the count up a little bit. But I thought from the third inning on, that third inning, fourth inning, part of that fifth, I thought he kind of found it. He started to land everything he wanted, change up, got swings and misses, slider started to land in the zone. So all in all, the first inning was like, man, this could go sideways quick. We got the overturn, and from there, I thought he started to pitch a lot better.”
WooSox Pitching Coach Dan DeLucia following Friday’s DH was asked what he thought about Fitts’ start, and DeLucia said, “I thought tonight he had to battle a little bit. You know, his first start after having two days of being snowed out. So I think there was a little rust there, not just for him, but for everybody that had to pitch. Obviously, some tough weather, too. But overall, I thought he did a good job. He battled, made some pitches when he needed to. You know, and as the game went on, started figuring out hitters a little bit more and saw what was working for him. And then just kept trying to attack the zone.”
When asked if there were any areas he thought that Fitts needs to develop on, DeLucia said, “Yeah, I think we all, you know, all pitchers need to develop a little bit here and there. He’s typically a guy that pounds the zone early and often. I think there’s some improvements that could be made just on, you know, but I don’t want to single out one outing, right? Like, we need to look at outings over a longer period of time than that. But overall, we’re going to continue to develop a slider. I thought his changeup and fastball played pretty well. But I think if you asked him, he’d say it was an okay outing, but there’s definitely some improvements that can be made. So he’s a hard worker, so I know he’ll be ready to go back to work here in a couple days.”
When asked what his thoughts were on his Worcester debut, Fitts said, “Yeah, it was fun. Long-waited, for sure. Just supposed to pitch on Wednesday, and then I got pushed back, which is unfortunate. You know, you can’t help the weather. But, you know, it was fun. It’s exciting. Didn’t really do as well as I wanted to. Just didn’t pound the zone as much as I wanted to. Had a couple walks. Got into a lot of late counts. Just three-ball counts, that kind of stuff, which I didn’t love. And then moving on through the outing, just started pounding the zone a little bit more. Had a little bit more success with it.”
When asked what he took from today that he liked and may want to build on moving forward, Fitts said, “Yeah, biggest thing is just going to be pounding the strike zone. I’m really good when I can get ahead of hitters and kind of do what I want to. And these hitters are good enough to where if I get behind, they’re going to damage it whenever I throw it right over the middle of the plate.”
Romy Gonzalez had a pretty impressive game Friday collecting three runs and in three at-bats he had two hits and grabbed five RBI to own ten RBI to start the the season, and own 169 MiLB career RBI. Romy’s home run grand slam Friday was his first grand slam of the season, and was his third homer of the season. On March 29 against the Lehigh Valley IronPigs he hit two home runs. Romy now has 49 MiLB career homers.
Following Friday’s DH, Tracy was asked about Romy and he said, “Power and the ability to drive the ball in the opposite field. He’s been awesome for us so far, he’s a good looking baseball player.”
Game two of Friday’s DH was a makeup of the game on April 4th, and the Bisons won 0-5. The Bisons grabbed their first two runs at the top of the second with Leo Jimenez hitting a single drive in Will Robertson and Max McDowell. Rafael Lantigua, Addison Barger and Orelvis Martinez each scored at the top of the third to put Buffalo on top, 5-0.
The Worcester Red Sox and Buffalo Bisons will meet again on Saturday with first pitch scheduled at 4:05 pm. Saturday, before the game fans can meet WooSox players and coaches in the DCU Club. Gate D at Polar Park will open at 1:45 pm, and fans can make their way up to the DCU Club to meet WooSox players and coaches from 2 pm – 2:45 pm.
Saturday at Polar Park is also Ghanaian & West African Heritage Day.
Following Saturday’s game, is the WooSox most talked about fan experience at Polar Park for the past three seasons, the Sunset Catch on the Field.