RailRiders' McKinney plates six on career night

Though top Yankees prospectGleyber Torres will miss the rest of the season with an elbow injury, another player acquired in last year's Aroldis Chapman trade with the Cubs has been making noise for Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. And Billy McKinney saved his best performance for Friday.
The Yankees' 29th-ranked prospect drove in a career-high six runs and went 4-for-5 -- falling a single shy of the cycle -- as the RailRiders thumped Charlotte, 15-8, at BB&T Ballpark.

McKinney tripled home a run in each of his first two at-bats, tying RailRiders' single-game record and setting a personal best for the 22-year-old.
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The 2013 first-round pick doubled on a fly ball to center field leading off the fifth, then stepped to the plate with the bases loaded later in the frame. With a 1-1 count against reliever Colton Turner, he clubbed the next pitch over the right-center field wall for his second grand slam of the season. It capped the RailRiders' nine-run outburst.

Needing a single to complete his first career cycle, McKinney faced reliever Mark Lowe in the seventh. However, the veteran right-hander plunked him with a 1-1 offering.
The 6-foot-1, 205-pound outfielder got opportunity to make history with two outs in the ninth. He grounded a pitch from Danny Farquhar off the first base bag, but Danny Hayes handled it and just beat him with the flip to Farquhar.

Even without the cycle, Friday was a career night for McKinney. He established personal bests with six RBIs and four runs scored, besting his previous highs of three and four, respectively. And the Texas native turned in his first four-hit performance since May 11, 2014 with Class A Advanced Stockton in the A's organization.
McKinney has turned it on at the plate since joining Scranton/Wilkes-Barre at the end of June when second-ranked Yankees prospect Clint Frazier was promoted to the big leagues. After getting off to a slow start and hitting .250 in 69 games with Double-A Trenton, he sports a .333/.375/.633 slash line with five homers and 17 RBIs in 23 games with the RailRiders.

Picked up by New York with Torres at last year's Trade Deadline and ranked as highly as MLB.com's No. 34 overall prospect as recently as 2015, McKinney has worked to take advantage of his opportunity.
"I'm going to go out and give it my all every day," he told the [Wilkes-Barre] Times Leader earlier this month. "You never know what the results are going to be, but I'm going to give the best I got. I'm just glad the Yankees gave me the opportunity in Spring Training and here. I'm just going to go out there and help the team win and hope for results."
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Yankees No. 9 prospect Miguel Andújar and No. 24 prospect Jake Cave also went yard for Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. Reliever Giovanny Gallegos (3-1) picked up the win after allowing a hit and a walk and registering three strikeouts in two scoreless innings.
Charlotte starter Tyler Danish (3-10) was roughed up for 10 runs on 10 hits and four walks over four frames. Jake Peter finished with three hits and fell a triple shy of the cycle for the Knights.