STAFF REPORTS
On the day after Buffalo held the International League leaders in home runs without a single longball, it was the round tripper that helped give Columbus the 4-3 win on Sunday afternoon at Huntington Park.
The Clippers were held to just two base hits through the first seven innings and doubled that in the eighth with the fourth and final being the biggest blow. Bryan Baker surrendered back-to-back one-out walks before Bobby Bradley hit a ball over the right-field wall, giving the home squad the 4-3 lead.
Andrew Velazquez doubled home Max Moroff in the third inning for Columbus to open the scoring, The Bisons then took the lead in the fourth inning when Rowdy Tellez hit his ninth double with two outs. Jonathan Davis followed and on the first pitch he saw, sent the hanging breaking ball from Jackson Stephens well over the left field wall to give Buffalo the 2-1 lead
Davis’ home run was his tenth of the season, and fourth straight with double-digit long balls. He is just four away from his career-high of fourteen which he had in 2016 with Class-A Dunedin in 120 games. The outfielder’s 10th today is in just 65 games with Buffalo, but he also has one in 18 with the Blue Jays.
When Buffalo took the 2-1 lead in the top half of the fourth, Columbus nearly answered in the bottom part of the frame after Anthony Kay issued a two-out free pass to Eric Haase to load the bases after he walked Yu Chang and Mark Mathias earlier in the inning. Chang opened the inning with a base on balls before Bobby Bradley flew out to Roemon Fields. The pattern of walk-and-out continued with a walk to Mathias before a Daniel Johnson fly-out. Fortunate for Kay, that pattern lasted the entire inning as he was able to escape without allowing any of the baserunners to score when he got Moroff to strikeout swinging.
Columbus again almost tied the game later in the seventh if it wasn’t for Socrates Brito‘s defense. With Johnson on second after he doubled, Ka’ai Tom served a two-out ball into left that was dropping in quickly, but Brito slid at the last second to make the catch right before it was going to drop for the Clippers’ third hit of the contest.
While Brito saved a potential run with the sliding grab in left, it was only fitting for him to have a two-out single to left on an inside-out swing that plated Santiago Espinal for the 3-1 lead, who had also singled to the left side of the field.
Kay finished his outing giving up just one base hit, the RBI double to Velazquez in the third. The lone run ended up being unearned as Brito had trouble fielding the ball in left field, allowing Moroff to come all the way around the score. In addition to the three walks in the fourth, he gave up two other free passes for a total of five. Kay struck out eight in his six innings of work, including striking out the side in the sixth. After allowing his fifth walk of the ballgame, the southpaw retired the last seven batters he faced, striking out four of them.
Kay’s six innings was the longest in three starts in a Bison uniform and he now has a 2.94 ERA in 15.1 innings with Buffalo (5 earned runs) with 17 strikeouts.
BISONS NOTES: While Buffalo dropped Sunday’s contest, both Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and Rochester also lost. The standings remain the same for the top three teams in the IL North with the RailRiders holding the lead and the Bisons and Red Wings both tied for second and five games behind.
