Class Reunion Notices

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<p>MOOSIC &#8212; Matt Wotherspoon got up and walked around the Norfolk Tides&#8217; bullpen often early in Wednesday&#8217;s game. But it wasn&#8217;t because of nerves or anything like that.</p><p>Sure, he was back in his old ballpark &#8212; PNC Field &#8212; facing his old team &#8212; the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders &#8212; and was the hometown kid &#8212; as a Crestwood grad still living with his parents in Mountain Top in the offseason, and when he was with the RailRiders &#8212; but he was just excited. It was another opportunity to pitch for his new team. Something he&#8217;s done well in five appearances &#8212; sporting a 2.05 ERA. Wednesday was no different.</p><p>His old teammates were no match as Wotherspoon pitched 2.1 shutout innings while giving up just one hit and a pair of walks while striking out four. However, his new teammates didn&#8217;t follow suit as Norfolk fell 6-3.</p><p>&#8220;It was fun. A couple guys kind of gave me little head nod &#8212; (RailRiders catcher) Eddy (Rodriguez) &#8212; but it was just fun more than anything,&#8221; Wotherspoon said. &#8220;It&#8217;s been kind of different coming here and being on the other side of the park there, but it&#8217;s been fun to see everybody. Good to see those guys. I miss all those guys, too. There&#8217;s a lot of great people over in (the RailRiders&#8217;) clubhouse.&#8221;</p><p>Coming in to the game in the fourth inning, in a 6-1 ball game with men on first and second and two outs, Wotherspoon entered in another high-stakes situation. Each of the last of the Crestwood and Pitt alum&#8217;s outings have started with runners on the base paths.</p><p>However, Wotherspoon wasn&#8217;t phased. He struck out RailRiders third baseman Miguel Andujar looking to end the threat. The strikeout would be his first of four. Three of them were looking, too.</p><p>Wotherspoon said that he used his knowledge of his former teammates&#8217; approach at the plate to his advantage, especially with Andujar in the fourth. With Andujar facing a 3-2 count, he knew the third baseman would be &#8220;hunting a fastball there.&#8221; So he threw a slider instead. It worked.</p><p>RailRiders outfielder Jake Cave&#8217;s at-bat, which ended in a strikeout, in the sixth inning was an example as well.</p><p>&#8220;I know what he can do. He works off of his fastball,&#8221; Cave said. &#8220;His fastball&#8217;s only 90, 91, but when you&#8217;re up in the box that thing feels about 100. There&#8217;s just something about it. He&#8217;s got good carry. He&#8217;s kind of quick out of his delivery. So I knew I was going to get some fastballs, but I kind of just wanted him to make a mistake, but he didn&#8217;t. He stayed on the corners and those are the at-bats where you just have to tip your cap.&#8221;</p><p>For his former teammates, like Cave, it was a little different seeing Wotherspoon in a creamsicle orange uniform top instead his old navy blue one.</p><p>&#8220;He got me. I&#8217;m probably going to send him a text here soon,&#8221; Cave said after the game. &#8220;He&#8217;s awesome. He&#8217;s great. He was great with us.</p><p>&#8220;Yeah, he got me today. It&#8217;s tough. I tried to battle back into a good count. It&#8217;s tough. He got me. I tip my cap to him.&#8221;</p><p>Tides manager Ron Johnson gave Wotherspoon a strong vote of confidence on Monday, saying that he could have &#8220;an opportunity&#8221; to pitch in relief for Baltimore in the future &#8220;if he keeps doing what he&#8217;s doing.&#8221;</p><p>Cave gave his former teammate similar vote of confidence.</p><p>&#8220;There were times where I don&#8217;t think he was appreciated enough,&#8221; Cave said. &#8220;He was always going up and down &#8212; Double-A, Triple-A &#8212; and from a hitter&#8217;s point of view, I was always like, &#8216;Why? This guy shoves.&#8217; I&#8217;m really happy for him. He got an opportunity another team that I would think that he would get some big-league time at some point with them.&#8221;</p><p>RailRiders manager Al Pedrique was happy to see Wotherspoon as well.</p><p>He wished the 25-year-old right-hander success in the future. Just not against the RailRiders.</p><p>&#8220;He&#8217;s such a great guy, great professional,&#8221; Pedrique said. &#8220;The only thing that we hope is he won&#8217;t do too good against us, but that&#8217;s the way baseball is. You have this guy for a couple years, they go somewhere else, play well, pitch well and we hope that he does real well the rest of the year.&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Crestwood grad and Norfolk Tides reliever Matt Wotherspoon made his PNC Field return on Wednesday. Wotherspoon, who used to pitch for the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders, threw 2.1 scoreless frames. Tony Callaio | For Times Leader</div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/web1_Matt-Wotherspoon-1.jpg</photo0><caption0>Crestwood grad and Norfolk Tides reliever Matt Wotherspoon made his PNC Field return on Wednesday. Wotherspoon, who used to pitch for the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders, threw 2.1 scoreless frames. Tony Callaio | For Times Leader</caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By DJ Eberle</p><p>djeberle@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach DJ Eberle at 570-991-6398 or on Twitter @ByDJEberle</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Crestwood grad and Norfolk Tides reliever Matt Wotherspoon has ‘fun’ return home