STAFF REPORTS
BUFFALO, N.Y. — On Wednesday night at Coca-Cola Field, one game took five minutes and the other took nearly three hours… and thanks in large part to Jonathan Davis, the Bisons won them both.
The Herd earned a 2-1 victory in the conclusion of Tuesday night’s suspended game then rallied from two runs down to defeat the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders, 7-3, in the nightcap in front of 10,186 in downtown Buffalo. Davis had the decisive hit in each contest as the Herd improved to 60-65 on the season.
The restart of the suspended game lasted just two batters as Davis singled home Gunnar Heidtwith one out in the bottom of the ninth inning. Heidt led off the inning on Tuesday night with a base hit in the rain and moved to second base on a wild pitch from RailRiders reliever George Kontosthat forced the umpire to suspend the game. On Wednesday, and with five Scranton/Wilkes-Barre fielders in on the infield, Davis chopped a pitch foul that had just enough english to bounce back fair and down the right field line.
Taylor Guerrieri earned the victory in game one despite the fact that he didn’t throw a pitch in over 18 hours. He threw a scoreless inning of relief on Tuesday night and was the pitcher of record when the game restarted. Brandon Cumpton started the contest and allowed just one run on three hits in eight innings of work.
The Bisons then found themselves down 3-1 in Wednesday’s regularly scheduled game before a big four-run fourth inning turned the game around. Tim Lopes golfed a two-run single into left field with the bases loaded to score Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and the rehabbing Lourdes Gurriel Jr.
Then after Heidt walked to ‘re-load’ the bases, Davis roped another two-run single into left field on a full count pitch to give the Bisons their first lead of the game.
Buffalo added a pair of insurance runs in the eighth inning on RBI hits from Darnell Sweeney and Heidt.
The Bisons bullpen shutdown the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre attack as Chris Stewart, Conor Fisk, Craig Breslow and Jose Fernandez all threw shutout baseball in relief. For his two innings of work, Stewart earned the win and improved to 2-0 on the season.
The Bisons will look for the three-game sweep of the rival RailRiders on Thursday afternoon with a 1:05 p.m. first pitch. There are just five more home games left in the 2018 season.
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