Bisons earn series split with historic 17-0 shutout victory

The Bisons weren’t messing around in earning a series split with the Rochester Red Wings.

Buffalo scored the largest shutout victory in their modern era history, romping Rochester to the tune of a 17-0 win on Sunday afternoon from Sahlen Field.

Buffalo outhit the Wings, 15-1, and scored in six of the eight innings they came to the plate. Ten different Herd batters scored runs and five Bisons batters drove in multiple runs, led by four RBI from Rafael Lantigua.

The 17-0 victory eclipsed a pair of 15-run shutout victories over Pawtucket in 1999 and Durham in 2006 for the largest shutout win in team history. The 17-run margin of victory fell one shy of the club’s modern era mark set 11 years ago in a 27-9 win in Syracuse.

The Bisons wasted little time on Sunday, scoring three runs in both the first and second innings. Buffalo took advantage of a wild Thadeous Ward to start the game as the Rochester starter walked three and hit Addison Barger among the first five batters he faced. The fifth batter was Will Robertson, whose bases loaded walk pushed across the game’s first run.

Damiano Palmegiani followed with a bloop single into centerfield that scored a pair of runs because of fantastic read on the ball by Addison Barger at second base.

The Herd then doubled their three-run advantage in the second by once again loading the bases with no outs. Barger beat out a potential doubleplay to score the first run of the inning. Buffalo then plated two more when Robertson hit a sharp grounder off Ward’s leg. When the Rochester pitcher recovered and collected the baseball near the first base line, he threw wildly to first to allow Buffalo’s fifth and sixth runs of the game.

Robertson was credited with an RBI on one of the two run runs, giving him 11 on the season.

The Bisons blew the game open with six more runs in the fourth inning. Once again loading the bases with no outs, Palmegiani drew a walk to make it 7-0 and Rafael Lantigua followed with sharp double down the left field line to clear the bases and put the Herd up 10-0.

Steward Berroa’s line drive into right-center scored Lantigua and Spencer Horwitz doubled down the left field line to score Berroa all the way from first base. For Horwitz, it was just one of the five times he reached base safely before being pulled from the game in the seventh inning (walk-single-walk-double-single).

Barger’s RBI single in the sixth inning gave him a team-best 13 RBI on the season and put the Herd up 13-0. Lantigua added another double and run driven in in the seventh inning and Orelvis Martinez put the exclamation point on a dominating performance with a three-run 425-foot home run in the eighth inning.

The homer extended Martinez’s current hitting streak to nine games.

Five different Bisons pitchers combined for the shutout, led by Paxton Schultz who started and threw 2.1 innings of baseball. He did allow the lone Rochester hit, a clean single from Darren Baker in the third inning.

Buffalo hurlers pitched in and out of trouble all game long, completing the shutout despite walking 10 Rochester batters. The Red Wings had just one hit in the game, but left 11 men on base.

The Bisons are off on Monday and will travel to Columbus for a six-game series against the Clippers starting on Tuesday night from Huntington Park.