Bisons piece together 4-2 win over division-leading RailRiders

The Buffalo Bisons pieced together a series-tying 4-2 win over the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders Friday night thanks to the hot bat of Cullen Large and operative relief pitching from the best staff in the Triple-A East.

The night began with two scoreless innings of rehab work from Bisons’ starter Thomas Hatch who is down with the Bisons after suffering a right elbow impingement with the Toronto Blue Jays. Hatch was limited to just 51 pitches after getting into full-counts with four of the eight batters he faced.

The lefty Kirby Snead jumped in action following Hatch making his team-leading 13th appearance of the year. Snead was perfect striking out three and inducing two flyouts in 22 pitches to take care of the third and fourth innings.

Without a hit, the Bisons scrapped across their first run in the fourth inning. Logan Warmoth reached on a walk, got to second on a walk of Nash Knight and skipped to third on a wild pitch before Cullen Large drove him home with a sacrifice fly. But Large wasn’t done there.

The Bisons’ tacked on a trio of insurance runs in the sixth after Large came up with another clutch hit flicking a single into center and driving home Warmoth for the second time to extend the lead to 2-0. Kevin Smith continued the rally throwing a knockout blow to the RailRiders with his team-leading ninth double of the season to score a pair.

Large finished his night with three singles, his third three-hit game of the year and his sixth hit in the last three games. The flurry of hits in the last three games comes after one for 20 slump to begin June that he seems to be breaking out of.

“I think he's just finding holes now,” said Bisons’ hitting coach Corey Hart. “He's been hit the ball hard. All this whole year he's actually leading our team in hard hits and he easily could be hitting about .380 right now.”

With a lead, Nick Allgeyer took over for Snead and patched together the next four innings acting as the long-reliever throwing 83 pitches and allowing the RailRiders one on a solo-homerun from Trey Amburgey.

However, Allgeyer did not make it easy on himself.

After allowing runners to reach the corners with two outs in the fifth, the lefty launched a pitch between Graterol’s legs and to the backstop. Socrates Brito immediately made a break from third to home but was met by a diving Graterol who had quickly scooped up the wild pitch and applied the tag to save a run and the inning.

Allgeyer then tumbled into another tough situation in the eight. After striking out four in a row to end the seventh and begin the eighth, he allowed three consecutive hits to load the bases before inducing a fly-out to end the eighth inning.

Grasping to a 4-1 lead, Bryan Baker took the mound in the ninth and wrapped up his third save of the year after allowing a single run and striking out a pair.

Following the win, Buffalo’s pitching staff held the top-scoring offense in the Triple-A East Northeast division, 5.3 runs per game, to just two runs in their last 16 innings and has the lowest ERA in the Triple-A East league, 3.16.

The Bisons (17-15) will take that top ranked pitching staff and meet up again with the RailRiders (21-11) Saturday at Trenton Thunder Ballpark with the series tied at two wins apiece and a chance to win their third straight in the series.

Righty T.J. Zeuch is expected to start in search of his second win of the season for the Bisons against the RailRiders Nick Green. The first pitch is scheduled for 6:30 p.m.