DATE: Sunday, June 29, 1997                 TAG: 9706290189

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C10  EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY LARRY BUMP, CORRESPONDENT 

DATELINE: ROCHESTER, N.Y.                   LENGTH:   49 lines

TIDES FALL TO ROCHESTER FOR LACK OF A CLUTCH HIT CHARLIE GREENE HITS A 2-RUN HOME RUN FOR NORFOLK.

For want of a clutch hit, a game was lost.

``We had a chance to score some runs, but we didn't. We had a lot of opportunities,'' folk Tides manager Rick Dempsey said in summarizing his team's 5-3 loss to the Rochester Red Wings Saturday.

The Tides left 10 runners on base, six of them in scoring position, and scored only one run while twice loading the bases with less than two out.

Norfolk battled back all night after Rochester broke open a scoreless game with a three-run third inning. Charlie Greene belted a two-run home run, his third this season, in the fifth.

And after the Red Wings scored in the bottom of that inning on a double-play grounder, the Tides came back within a run on Phil Geisler's RBI single in the sixth.

Rochester reliever Chris Bennett then bobbled Chris Saunders' sacrifice bunt to load the bases with nobody out. But Bennett then struck out James Martin and started an inning-ending double play on Greene's grounder.

Two innings later, it was more of the same. Bases loaded, one out, still a 4-3 game, against Rod Steph. Martin hit a fly ball to centerfield, but too shallow to advance Scott McClain from third base. Wes Chamberlain pinch-hit, and on the first pitch, skied an inning-ending popup to the right of the mound.

Or did he?

First baseman B.J. Waszgis settled under the ball, waiting for it to come down. And waiting some more.

``Wazy hasn't played much first base, but when he got under it, you could see he was going to have trouble with it,'' Dempsey said.

Enter second baseman P.J. Forbes, who grabbed the ball before it hit the ground, standing so close to Waszgis that he said the ball touched the first baseman's glove.

``What's the second baseman doing in on the grass on that one?'' Dempsey asked, half-jokingly. ``He's got no business coming in on that ball.''

Of his first starting assignment since 1995, said pitcher Barry Manuel, who is 0-1 in four games: ``I didn't do as good as I wanted. I was trying to get in five or six innings and help the team win, and I made that one pitch to Bullett. I tried to go away, but I didn't get it away.

``The inning before I got two outs and walked two guys. It's a matter of concentration. You cannot relax even though you've got two outs.''

Said Dempsey: ``The first couple of innings he was OK. Then he started getting the ball up in the strike zone. That's what he was fighting. ... We've got to find a way to get him enough innings.''

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