Hot wings! First-place Red Wings are riding a nine-game winning streak entering homestand

For as long as there is minor league baseball, the primary goal, regardless of the level, will always be to develop players who can go up to the major leagues and become key contributors for the parent club.

Rochester Red Wings manager Matt LeCroy obviously understands this, but he also knows there’s something to be said for winning while you develop, and right now, his red-hot ballclub is doing an awful lot of that.

“You develop winning, too,” LeCroy said Monday after he and the Wings returned to Rochester riding the wave of a nine-game winning streak. “When you get to Double-A and Triple-A you’ve got to try to win games when you can win them and put guys in roles to create that winning atmosphere along with development.”

Last year was brutal for LeCroy and the Wings as the team struggled all season, finished with a 49-77 record which was one of the worst in the International League. That last month was tough to get through as everyone couldn’t wait for it to be over and in many ways it probably stunted the development of some players.

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“I think (winning is) important because it’s a long season and if you’ve got a bad team, it just drags and you don’t get the most out of the guys,” LeCroy said. “When you have a winning club and a winning atmosphere, it just creates an environment where people want to come to the park and play and contribute any way they can.

“We talk about development and winning and we want to do both. We want to develop winners so when they get to the big leagues where it’s all about winning, they know how to win.”

So far, this Wings team has learned that lesson. They just swept a six-game series at Worcester, the first time they’ve done that since the IL went to the six-game series format last year.

The nine-game winning streak - which they’ll put on the line Tuesday night when they begin a six-game set at Frontier Field against Lehigh Valley - is Rochester’s longest since a 10-gamer in 1992.

It has propelled the Wings into first place in the IL East at 24-12, four games ahead of Buffalo and Jacksonville. Only Nashville, who leads the West at 24-11, has a better record in the league, and no one in the other Triple-A circuit, the Pacific Coast League, can match Rochester’s mark.

“We’ve just gotten big hits from people and even when we’re down we’re never out of it,” LeCroy said. “We just continue to have good at bats, put balls in play with two strikes and our situational hitting has been really good. So it’s just a combination of a lot of things.”

All this fun began two weekends ago when the Wings swept a Saturday doubleheader at Frontier Field against Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, and then finished off that series with a 2-1 victory.

Off to Worcester they went to play the top farm club of the Boston Red Sox, and it was no contest. It’s no easy task winning six straight against one team, but the Wings outscored the Woo Sox 39-19 (with 26 of the runs scoring with two outs) and out-hit them 63-41 in what was a thorough thrashing.

If there was a game that epitomized how this season has gone, it was the Wednesday victory in Worcester. Trailing 2-0 with two outs in the ninth, the Wings erupted for three runs as Andrew Stevenson delivered a two-run double and then scored the winning run on a single by Luis Garcia who somehow is still in Rochester and not up with the Nationals.

And then Sunday, there was more resilience, even though the Wings really didn’t play that well. They made four errors and they struck out 11 times and managed just one hit in six innings against Sox starter Connor Seabold.

However, once Seabold was lifted after 92 pitches, the Wings immediately tied the game at 2-2 in the seventh on Andrew Young’s homer. Then, after falling behind 3-2, back came the Wings again as they loaded the bases in the ninth and tied the game on a passed ball to force extra innings. In the 10th, they wasted no time putting it away as they scored four to win 7-4.

“I call it the Never Say Die Wings,” LeCroy said. “The guys just feel like they’re never out of a game. They fight and try to find ways to get on base and create some pressure. We’ve just been able to get some big hits, we’ve had a lot of things go our way with wild pitches and passed balls, and it’s just the belief that they pick each other up.”

Stevenson and Garcia each went 9-for-25 (.360) and combined for 12 RBI to lead the offense in Worcester. On the mound, Jackson Tetreault made two starts and allowed just two earned runs in nine innings while striking out 13, while top prospect Cade Cavalli had a strong outing in that Wednesday game when he gave up just one earned run in 5.2 innings while striking out six.

As for the bullpen, it allowed just seven earned runs in 30 innings of work.

“I really really like where this club is and the way they pull for each other,” LeCroy said. “Even guys that don’t get to play much, they’re contributing when they get a chance to play which is always good to see. If you get the big two-out hits and play defense and pitch, you’re gonna win some games. It’s just a lot of things that have helped us win all of these games.”

Sal Maiorana can be reached at maiorana@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @salmaiorana.

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Rochester Red Wings schedule catches them at home during win streak