A night after giving up a season high in hits, the Buffalo Bisons answered back with a 3-0 shutout victory, evening their series with the Rochester Red Wings at Coca-Cola Field Tuesday evening.
Starter Chris Leroux had his longest outing in nearly six weeks, hurling 6.2 innings of shutout ball while limiting the Red Wings to a trio of hits. The Montreal native fanned four en route to his eighth win, walking off the mound to a standing ovation from an exuberant Tuesday-night crowd.
“It’s a long season, you have peaks and valleys. Hopefully I’ve found something here that I can end the season on,” said Leroux, before mentioning the Buffalo faithful who braved the threating skies at first-pitch.
“It’s fun to listen too. I was just glad they didn’t yell my name while I was pitching when they were going around the infield and outfield. They were good and yelled it while I was waiting for the back-catcher, so good for them.”
With runners on first and second, Aaron Loup took over for Leroux and ended any Rochester thoughts of a rally, inducing a ground-ball out in a lefty-lefty matchup with James Beresford.
Bo Schultz struck out a batter as part of a three-up, three-down eighth and punched out another in the ninth to earn the save. The hard-throwing reliever has allowed just one run over his last 12.2 innings, lowering his ERA to 3.04 after 21 appearances with the Herd.
Buffalo got on the board in the third as Andy Burns started the inning off with a walk, then moved into scoring position with his 11th steal of the season. A.J. Jimenez brought Burns around with a liner to left field to open up the one-run lead.
The advantage was doubled in the sixth as Pompey also led off with a walk and, two-batters later, was driven in by a Jesus Montero rocket off of the wall in straight-away center.
“Montero just drilled some balls tonight. That hit to the center-field wall was probably the hardest ball I’ve seen him hit this year,” noted manager Gary Allenson post game.
In his eighth start while up with the Red Wings this year, Nick Greenwood was nearly equal to his mound counterpart. The veteran left-hander spread seven hits and three walks around seven innings and was charged with two Bisons runs.
The Herd tacked on another in their final at-bat via Matt Dominguez’s second home run in as many days. The third baseman took the Neil Ramirez offering and sent it just beyond the outstretched arm of Adam Walker as the left fielder scaled the wall.
BISONS NOTES:
Prior to Tuesday’s tango, Ezequiel Carrera’s rehab with the Herd came to an end as he was activated by the Blue Jays…Jesus Montero finished the night 2-for-4, extending his hitting streak to eight games while continuing to hold top spot in the IL with 135 hits…Now with 8 wins in 2016, Chris Leroux is tied for the team lead with Scott Diamond…The Bisons are 13-12 in shutout games this season.
from Bisons.com via IFTTT
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