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Dallas school cafeteria workers seek answers from board about lost benefits

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Wilkes-Barre Area moves forward on new high school, rejects second opinion

<p>As the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders boarded their bus to head to Durham, N.C., Monday morning, they embarked on what has the potential to be the start of an historic week.</p><p>The RailRiders are back in the Governors&#8217; Cup finals for a second straight season and by the end of the week, they can lock up not only back-to-back Governors&#8217; Cup championships, but they could secure a spot in the Triple-A National Championship on Sept. 19. If the RailRiders do that, they&#8217;d become the first team to play the national championship game at their home stadium.</p><p>But Scranton/Wilkes-Barre isn&#8217;t thinking that far ahead. Just Game 1. A tough matchup against the Bulls, who finished with the second-best record in the International League and are coming off of two days of rest.</p><p>&#8220;I&#8217;m not going to lie to you, in our locker room, we&#8217;re worried about Game 1 against Durham,&#8221; RailRiders catcher Eddy Rodriguez said. &#8220;If all that stuff works out &#8212; and I know our front office is hoping it works out &#8212; great, but we have one game. We have to go and once we get that game we&#8217;ll go from there.&#8221;</p><p>While Durham provides a tough test for the RailRiders &#8212; sporting three of the best pitchers in the International League in Ryan Yarbrough (13-6, 3.43 ERA), Yonny Chirinos (12-5, 2.74) and Brett Honeywell (12-8, 3.64) &#8212; Scranton/Wilkes-Barre found some success in its season series against the IL South champs. The RailRiders were 3-4 against the Bulls this season, playing four games in Durham.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s going to be a good series,&#8221; RailRiders manager Al Pedrique said. &#8220;They have good pitching. We do as well. Our bullpen is rested. Our chemistry, our heart. That&#8217;s going to be the key for this team &#8212; to believe in ourselves &#8212; and we still have a good team that we can compete against Durham. We&#8217;ll be prepared. We have good feelings about their club. We can&#8217;t wait.&#8221;</p><p>The key to Scranton/Wilkes-Barre&#8217;s success this week could be the play of its bullpen.</p><p>Nick Rumbelow, Jonathan Holder, Joe Mantiply and Anyelo Gomez were key pieces to the RailRiders&#8217; success in the opening round. Together they pitched 10.2 innings of shutout baseball in the first round against the Lehigh Valley IronPigs. Rumbelow picked up saves in two of Scranton/Wilkes-Barre&#8217;s wins.</p><p>But what might be most promising has been the efforts of Gomez and Holder.</p><p>Holder has given up just one run in six outings since coming off the disabled list on Aug. 24, while Gomez has been able to pitch in high-pressure situations in both of his first-round appearances, which were his first two at the Triple-A level.</p><p>&#8220;We try to keep the spotlight off of us and if we&#8217;re not getting talked about, we&#8217;re doing a good job,&#8221; Holder said of the bullpen. &#8220;We like to stay low-key, go out, get outs quick and let our team hit the way they can.&#8221;</p><p>The RailRiders were slumping heading into the playoffs, but since their two days off prior to Game 1 of the Governors&#8217; Cup playoffs first round, the offense have came alive. Scranton/Wilkes-Barre averaged four runs in its four games against the IronPigs.</p><p>They&#8217;ll look to keep the hot bats going against a much better pitching staff in the Bulls.</p><p>&#8220;I feel like we&#8217;re finally getting timely hitting,&#8221; RailRiders outfielder Mason Williams said. &#8220;We&#8217;re getting hits and scoring runs at the right times and I feel like we just keep grabbing momentum at the right time, which really helps.&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders outfielder Mason Williams sports a .333 batting average in his last 10 games prior to Tuesday&#8217;s Game 1 of the Governors&#8217; Cup finals against the Durham Bulls. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/web1_rr_bu4_faa-CMYK.jpg</photo0><caption0>Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders outfielder Mason Williams sports a .333 batting average in his last 10 games prior to Tuesday&#8217;s Game 1 of the Governors&#8217; Cup finals against the Durham Bulls. </caption0><photoCredit0>Fred Adams file photo | For Times Leader </photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><subheadMeta>RailRiders not thinking too big</subheadMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By DJ Eberle</p><p>djeberle@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><factboxMeta><p style="text-align: center;"><strong>GAME 1</strong></p><p style="text-align: center;">Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders at Durham Bulls</p><p style="text-align: left;"><strong>When:</strong> 6:35 p.m.</p><p style="text-align: left;"><strong>Where:</strong> Durham Bulls Athletic Park</p><p style="text-align: left;"><strong>Probable Pitchers: </strong>TBA vs. DUR LHP Ryan Yarbrough (13-6, 3.43 ERA)</p><p style="text-align: left;"><strong>On Radio:</strong> The Game (1400-AM, 1440-AM, 106.7-FM)</p><p style="text-align: left;"><strong>Live Updates: </strong>Follow DJ Eberle on Twitter at @ByDJEberle</p></factboxMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach DJ Eberle at 570-991-6398 or on Twitter @ByDJEberle</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Goverors’ Cup Finals Preview: SWB RailRiders taking it one game at a time against Durham Bulls