Meyer still hasn't regained 2014 form, but he's closer

• Alex Meyer entered Thursday's game with a 7.62 ERA for the Red Wings
• A year ago he led the International League in strikeouts and ranked sixth in ERA
• Command of his pitches in the strike zone must improve, manager Mike Quade said

Defense abandoned the Rochester Red Wings on Thursday night and it cost them dearly in a 6-5, 11-inning loss to the Lehigh Valley IronPigs at Frontier Field.

Lehigh Valley used a pair of unearned runs to help erase a 5-2 deficit and then capitalized on a walk and two singles against reliever Caleb Thielbar to score the winning run in the 11th.

"It's very uncharacteristic of us to let down defensively," manager Mike Quade said.

The good news, though: starting pitcher Alex Meyer looked a little more like Alex Meyer.

A year ago, the Red Wings' right-hander led the International League in strikeouts, averaging 10.6 per nine innings, and was sixth in the IL in earned-run average (3.52). Another season — or another three or four months — of similar pitching and he may have been MLB bound.

Meyer hasn't been the same pitcher this season, however. He entered Thursday night with a 2-2 record and inflated 7.62 ERA. He pitched past the fifth inning just twice in his first six starts.

And in his most recent outing — an eight-run disaster in Louisville, when he allowed hits to seven consecutive batters — he couldn't finish the third inning. It was the most runs he'd ever allowed in 74 career professional starts.

So what has been the problem?

"Right now I'm just trying to figure it out," Meyer said following Thursday's game, when he pitched 6 1/3 solid innings.

He looked a whole lot more like the guy who would take charge every time he stepped onto the mound. After the first inning, that is.

Two of the first three hitters reached on line-drive singles and then, after a walk to Dominic Brown loaded the bases, Jordan Danks sent a weak grounder back up the middle for a two-run single.

But the inning ended on a double-play grounder and Meyer went on to retired nine of the next 10. For the night he allowed seven hits in pitching into the seventh, walking two while striking out four.

"With some of the outings he's had, in particular the last one, he should feel he took a step in the right direction," Quade said. "He has a few more steps to go to where I heard he was last year but it's a step in the right direction."

Meyer knows it's a work in progress.

"I didn't necessarily finish off guys as well as I would have liked to but, again, it's part of the process," he said. "I've got to continue to throw strikes, get ahead in the zone, command the zone and go from there."

Indeed, just because the pitch is a strike doesn't mean it's a good strike.

"The velocity's there," Quade said of the hard-thrower who hit 98 with a fastball that struck out Maikel Franco to end the third inning.

More important is where the pitch is.

"It's not just about walks necessarily, it's about in the zone," Quade said. "You can throw a strike belt high down the middle and that's a strike, but it usually doesn't reach the catcher, or you can throw pitches to different quadrants of the plate where you're going to be effective and get people out.

"The same is true with the command of his off-speed stuff. Tbhat has been a work in progress for me as well. When his breaking ball is right, whew... but it's got to be effective in the zone."

KEVINO@DemocratandChronicle.com

Game night

The matchup: Red Wings vs. Lehigh Valley IronPigs (Triple-A affiliate of the Philadelphia Phillies.

Time/place: 7:05 p.m. Friday/Frontier Field. Gates open at 6 p.m.

Tickets: $9, $11.50, $13.

Pitching matchup: Wings right-hander Jason Wheeler (1-2, 5.05) opposes righty Severino Gonzalez (1-1, 3.57).

Radio: WHTK-AM (1280).