STAFF REPORTS
Trailing by a run in the ninth inning, the Bisons sent 11 men to the plate and scored seven times in a wild 12-7 win over Charlotte on Saturday night at BB&T Ballpark. The 12 runs and the 17 hits that produced them were both season highs for the Herd.
The biggest hit in the Herd’s biggest inning of the season came off the bat of Rowdy Tellez. With the score tied at sx, Tellez cleared a Zack Burdi (0-3) pitch just past the infield before it grounded to right field, giving Jake Elmore and Dwight Smith Jr. room to score the game-winning runs of the evening.
Tellez’s winning hit was part of a chain reaction in the ninth inning ignited by a Roemon Fields triple. Shortly afterward, Elmore singled to left field to score Fields and knot the game up at six. Later in the inning, Buffalo loaded the bases after Raffy Lopez was hit by a pitch and Ian Parmley walked. A single from Christian Lopes, a sac fly from Shane Opitz, and a balk from Charlotte’s Matt Purke allowed the Bisons to send four more runs home to wrap up the wild night.
Buffalo came out of the gate running and had the early lead over the Knights in the first and second innings. Elmore doubled to center field to score Fields while Tellez brought home Elmore with a grounder to right field. Parmley doubled to left field an inning later and advanced to third when Opitz grounded out. From third, he made his way home thanks to a single from Fields, putting Buffalo up 3-0.
The Knights trailed for the entire first half of the game and faced a 5-1 deficit heading into the bottom half of the fifth inning. After Charlotte’s Nicky Delmonico walked to fill up the bases with two outs, Danny Haynes turned a Jarrett Grube pitch into a grand slam to left-center field and scored Jacob May and Yoan Moncada along with Delmonico.
Just two pitches after Haynes’ grand slam, Cody Asche raked in his second home run of the year with a line drive to right-center field, giving the Knights a 6-5 advantage over Buffalo.
Grube started for the Herd and pitched for five frames, giving up Haynes’ grand slam in the fifth inning. Cesar Valdez, Chad Girodo, and Chris Smith (1-0) pitched in relief for a combined three innings and just one hit. Lastly, Matt Dermody closed things out, allowing a single run in the ninth.
Buffalo continues their four-game series with Charlotte on Sunday night, with first pitch coming at 7:05 p.m.
BISONS NOTES: The Bisons’ Bullpen combined for 12 strikeouts on the evening…Ian Parmley was a perfect 4-4 today with 1 RBI…Rowdy Tellez also had a big night, going 4-5 and batting in 4 runs…Buffalo grabbed their first win of the season in eleven attempts when trailing after the eighth inning…The Herd is now 22-7 when scoring four runs or more and move to 26-20 overall.
