Eliminated earlier Saturday from the International League second-half race when the Rochester Red Wings defeated the Buffalo Bisons, it would have been easy for the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders to call it a season. Especially when they fell behind by four runs in the second inning to the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp.
Instead, they battled back to tie the game in the eighth inning, then won it in the bottom of the 10th, 6-5.
“It’s been the character of these guys all year long,” manager Shelley Duncan
said, “Who you are is really defined when you don’t have that incentive or purpose on the other side. It showed that these guys fight and play for each other and do little things because that’s just who they are. It was a character-tester. It would have been easy for them to shut it down, but they didn’t and it says a lot.”
Brandon Compton’s grand slam off Alexander Cornielle in the top of the second inning gave Jacksonville a 4-0 lead. A solo home run by Tyler Hardman in the bottom of the fourth and a two-run blast by J.C. Escarra in the bottom of the fifth pulled the RailRiders within 4-3.
The Jumbo Shrimp scored a run in the top of the seventh. But in the bottom of the eighth, Yanquiel Fernandez drew a leadoff walk. Hardman followed with a single and Duke Ellis had an infield single to load the bases. It was Ellis’ third hit of the game as he extended his hitting streak to 15 games and his on-base streak to 20 games. He also stole his 60th base of the season in the second inning.
“I’ve made some swing adjustments,” said Ellis, who prior to the game received the fans choice award as the team’s unsung hero. “Strikeouts were up early in the year and I had find a way to knock those down, being a speed guy. And I’m kind of finding the mindset of going 0 for 2, 0 for 3 is not the end of the world. It’s kind of freed me up to do what I did toward the end of the year.”
Kenedy Corona had a RBI groundout to score Fernandez and Connor McGuiness’ sacrifice fly plated Hardman to tie the score, 5-5, and force extra innings.
In the top of the 10th, reliever Justin Topa struck out the first two Jacksonville batters. However, with a 2-1 count on Logan Driscoll, Topa reached his pitch limit. Out of options, Duncan turned to catcher Edinson Duran, who was activated off the development list earlier in the day when Max Schuemann was called up by the Yankees. Duran walked Driscoll as well as the next batter Gage Miller to load the bases. But he got Johnny Olmstead to fly out to Ellis in center field for the third out.
“As I was warming up, I felt really excited,” Duran said with translation help from RailRiders bench coach Gil Velazquez. “I just put my 100 percent into winning the game.”
That’s what happened in the bottom-half of the 10th. Fernandez, the automatic runner, advanced to third on a groundout by Hardman. Ellis flew out to shallow right field for the second out. But when Stephen Jones uncorked a wild pitch on his first offering to Corona, Fernandez scored the winning run and made Duran the winning pitcher.
This is not the first time the 24-year-old Venezuelan has pitched for the RailRiders. In the past two seasons, he has appeared in eight games — six this season — and has a 1-2 record with one save. He has allowed 12 runs (nine earned) and 10 hits in eight innings with 10 walks and five strikeouts. On July 23, 2025, in Rochester he came on in the bottom of the 12th inning and recorded the final out with a strikeout to notch the save. The strikeout was the 22nd for RailRiders pitching, tying a team record for most in an extra inning game.
“Topa was out of pitches,” Duncan said. “We’re really strict with pitch counts. We had to move on and he was our last pitcher. Thankfully we had the opportunity to put Duran on the roster and he came through. It wasn’t the first time he’s done it. Feel very lucky to have a guy like him.”
Ellis and his teammates were thrilled for Duran.
“It’s great for a guy like that, how much effort he puts into this game,” Ellis said. “To come into that situation, it’s not easy. For him to do what he did, it was pretty cool. We had a little shower for him after the game.”
Duran knows his role sometimes is to come in and pitch, so he tries to stay ready and healthy if and when he is called upon.
“Any chance I have, I practice pitches and take care of my arm,” Duran said.
With rain threatening to postpone the season finale Sunday afternoon, Saturday would be the final game that Scranton/Wilkes-Barre used the nickname RailRiders; the team is rebranding next season. That would make Duran the unlikely answer to a trivia question: Who was the last winning pitcher in the RailRiders’ era?
“It’s incredible for me,” Duran said. “It’s my only chance to play and to win feels exciting.”
