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Crestwood edges Wyoming Area on long 4th-quarter touchdown run

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Berwick just too much for Dallas

<p>When Ben Heller stood in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders clubhouse Thursday afternoon, he questioned what his future would entail.</p><p>It was Aug. 31, a day before Sept. 1 call-ups, and Heller was one of the RailRiders likely to be called to help out the New York Yankees as the big-league club makes its push for the postseason. Little did he know he&#8217;d be one of the three RailRiders arranging rides to the Bronx in order to make the Yankees&#8217; 7 p.m. game against the Boston Red Sox on Friday.</p><p>Starters Jordan Montgomery and Bryan Mitchell are joining him.</p><p>&#8220;Just take it day by day, keep doing my work. Same thing I do every day and let the decision-makers handle those things,&#8221; Heller said of his approach leading up to Sept. 1. &#8220;Obviously I want to be in the big leagues. That&#8217;s my ultimate goal. I can&#8217;t do anything to control that besides my work.&#8221;</p><p>While the Yankees receive a shot to the arm with September call-ups, the RailRiders will undergo a makeover in the days to come.</p><p>Even though Heller, Mitchell and catcher Erik Kratz, who hadn&#8217;t reported to the team yet, left for the Yankees, it doesn&#8217;t mean more aren&#8217;t on the way.</p><p>Both Tyler Wade and Tyler Austin were recently optioned down to the RailRiders and have to wait 10 days before they can rejoin the big-league club. Pitchers Jonathan Holder, Domingo German and Ronald Herrera, catcher Kyle Higashioka and third baseman Miguel Andujar all have major league experience and are on the 40-man roster.</p><p>&#8220;That&#8217;s one thing as a manager, as a staff, we try to communicate to the players that this time time of the year &#8212; the same with the trade deadline &#8212; don&#8217;t worry about it,&#8221; RailRiders manager Al Pedrique said. &#8220;You have no control of the situation &#8212; how they&#8217;re going to go by, what decision they&#8217;re going to make. Our job is to get ready for (the games).&#8221;</p><p>Even though this can be a tense time in the clubhouse, with the future of many players up in the air as the postseason approaches, Eddy Rodriguez, one of the veteran leaders in the clubhouse, has a simple approach for this time of the season. So simple, it doesn&#8217;t even need to be addressed to the younger players.</p><p>&#8220;Realistically, not a darn thing,&#8221; Rodriguez said when asked if he&#8217;s going to talk to some of the younger players. &#8220;I&#8217;d be lying if I told them something real cliche. A lot of the guys understand what is expected of them out there and if they don&#8217;t know what&#8217;s expected of them, they&#8217;ll be let know in the first inning of the game, but I always give them the benefit of the doubt. We think the culture we&#8217;ve developed here over the last two years is that if you&#8217;re in Triple-A we&#8217;re going to win. If you go up to the big-leagues, go do your job, but if you&#8217;re in Triple-A we&#8217;re going to win.&#8221;</p><p>Now that Heller&#8217;s back in the Bronx, he wants to replicate the success he&#8217;s experienced with the RailRiders this past week &#8212; clinching a playoff berth and the International League North Division title &#8212; but with the Yankees.</p><p>&#8220;I think what we&#8217;ve experienced here is probably just a fraction of how exciting it would be up there, where everything is more meaningful,&#8221; Heller said. &#8220;It&#8217;s good to get a taste of it and get that experience and I think for myself and everybody else here, it just motivates us to get up there and do the same thing.&#8221;</p><p><strong>RailRiders fall at Lehigh Valley</strong></p><p>Sporting a two-run lead heading into the bottom of the seventh, the Lehigh Valley IronPigs used a five-run inning to hand the RailRiders their second straight loss, falling 5-3.</p><p>Brady Lail made the spot start for Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and went six scoreless, striking out three, and didn&#8217;t factor in the decision.</p><p>J.P. Feyereisen replaced Lail in the seventh and retired the first two batters before walking J.P. Crawford. An Andujar two-out throwing error extended the inning before Christian Marrero&#8217;s two-run single tied the game and Dylan Cozens&#8217; three-run homer broke it open. All five runs were unearned.</p><p>Ji-Man Choi was 2 for 4 with a double and Rodriguez had a solo home run.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Ben Heller was one of four RailRiders called up by the New York Yankees on Friday, when rosters expanded to 40 players. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/web1_TTL050617Railriders1.jpg</photo0><caption0>Ben Heller was one of four RailRiders called up by the New York Yankees on Friday, when rosters expanded to 40 players. </caption0><photoCredit0>Sean McKeag file photo | Times Leader </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>

SWB RailRiders undergo roster shake up after Yankees’ Sept. 1 call-ups