Fowler comes within homer of cycling again

Just over two weeks after Dustin Fowler hit a walk-off home run to complete a cycle and give Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre a win in the 11th inning, he was in position to do it again.
On Monday night, though, he was intentionally walked in that frame. The situation was not lost on his teammates, who joked he could still pull off a cycle with a game-winning dinger later on. Turned out, though, that Eddy Rodriguez played the hero with a grand slam in the 12th of the RailRiders' 8-4 victory over the PawSox.

Gameday box score
"Everyone always cuts up about it. It worked out where it looked like it could be the same way as the prior one, but thankfully Eddy Rodriguez came through for us before that came around," the Yankees' No. 8 prospect said. "Obviously, it would have been nice, but it's pretty nice to have a four-hit game and the team win too."
On top of two extra-base hits and a walk, his 4-for-5 performance included two RBIs, a run scored and a stolen base.

"It's awesome, especially for a guy like him. He's a great guy," Fowler said of the veteran catcher. "We were all trying to blow it out, of course."
Coming off a 1-for-5 game in which he struck out twice Sunday, the center fielder boosted his 2017 slash line to .308/.353/.566. The 22-year-old has collected eight doubles, seven triples and five homers to lead the International League with 20 extra-base hits this season.
"Especially coming off a rough game on Mother's Day, to come home and have a four-hit day helps out," Fowler said. "All I want to do is bring in what I did in the second half of last year [with Double-A Trenton]. I got a lot shorter to the ball, and that helped me produce a lot more power -- career high in home runs [12], and doubles [30] and triples [15]. I wanted to be able to continue to build with that, and so far I have. Hopefully, I can keep it going and stay healthy." 
His first hit was a ground-ball single through the right side off 11th-ranked Boston prospectBrian Johnson and came just after 11th-ranked New York prospect Tyler Wade led off the bottom of the first with a homer to right-center.
"It's always a confidence-booster," Fowler said. "When there's a lefty on the mound, you never know if he's going to have his good stuff. When the leadoff guy hits a home run, you feel better about yourself -- 'Hey, this guy doesn't have much tonight.' And I was able to come through with a hit to start the night out for me."

The left-handed hitter plated a run with another single to right in the fifth, and he chased Johnson with a laser up the right-field line in the seventh.
"I love hitting triples," Fowler said. "Hitting triples is one of my favorite things to do, so every time I hit the ball down the line, immediately out of the box, I'm trying for a triple. It got all the way down to the wall, and when I saw that I was pretty sure I was going to make it."
With the RailRiders down, 4-3, with one out in the inning, the Georgia native tried to tie the score on a fly ball off the bat of No. 20 overall prospectClint Frazier. Left fielder Ryan Court threw Fowler out at the plate.
"It was a play to try to force something. I thought I was safe, but everyone else thought I was out," he said. "The guy had to make a perfect throw, and he did. But it was one of those things that could have gone either way."
Two innings later and with two outs, Fowler delivered a game-tying double on a pop fly into no-man's land in left off Blaine Boyer to score Wade, who'd worked a two-out walk.

"It's always nice on days like tonight when everything seems to be going your way," Fowler said. "In that situation, I was able to come through, and Wade had a good at-bat before that and was able to score from first."
After Wade singled off Chandler Shepherd (0-2) to put runners on the corners with two down in the 11th, the 18th-round pick in 2013 wasn't surprised he didn't get a chance to hit.
"Definitely, especially in that situation where you wanted to be able to walk off the game, and with the night I was having, I obviously wanted to hit," he said. "But him being a right-hander and me a lefty and with the base open, I expected it to happen."
Ernesto Frieri (2-0) surrendered one hit and a walk while fanning three over the final three innings for the RailRiders.