NOTEBOOK: Bisons Bond Over Unique Season In Trenton

In sports, there is always uncertainty heading into every season. How will the team perform? Will players meet up to personal expectations? However, ahead of the 2021 season for Bisons, there was much more uncertainty with the Blue Jays taking Buffalo as their home base. With Trenton being the Herd’s temporary home, the players were not only met with great support from fans, staff, and the Trenton community as a whole but great support from each other as well.

After batting 4-for-5 at the plate and knocking in three runs in the Bisons 10-4 win over the Mets on Thursday night, Riley Adams was reminiscing about the club’s time in Trenton. Being 29-13 at home, Adams gave the credit to his teammates. “Traveling all over, we have bonded over this interesting season.”

An interesting season is certainly one way to put it, but the support that Adams discussed is very evident when watching the Herd. Hidden behind Buffalo’s 6-3 win over Syracuse on Saturday night, Anthony Morales made his Triple-A debut. On the first pitch of his first at-bat, the 22-year-old singled into center field, earning his first career Triple-A hit. Christian Colon, one of the club’s key veterans, emerged from the dugout, demanding the ball from the opposing team. Colon was successful in his attempt, getting the important ball for the youngster.

When looking at acts of kindness like that, it is easy to tell that the culture inside the Bisons’ locker room is rich. Just as important, the constant support from teammates is paying dividends for the club.

Take Adams for example. The young slugger had never played at the Triple-A level before, and the adjustment to the level of play took time. Now batting .239 on the season with seven home runs, six doubles, and 17 runs batted in, Adams' consistent approach and support from his teammates is panning out well.

In the most recent series against the Syracuse Mets, the young slugger had quite possibly his best performances to date, batting 8-for-19. More impressive, five of the eight hits for Adam’s were for extra-bases, providing the Herd with the power to put runs across the plate.

Tyler White was equally as impressive in the series. Playing in all six games, White was 8-for-22 at the plate, with six of his eight hits being for extra bases. The veteran also knocked in twelve runs for Buffalo and was named Triple-A East Batter-of-the-Week.

If White and Adams weren’t enough for the Syracuse pitchers to lose sleep over, Kevin Smith was on fire throughout the series too. Also appearing in all six games of the series, Smith went 8-for-23, hitting three home runs and batting in five runs for the Herd.

In addition to those three batters being problems at the plate for the Mets, the Bisons also saw contributions from Cullen Large, Nash Knight, Dilson Herrerra, and Christian Colon, who all batted .280 or above in the series.

Behind the hot-bats, the Bisons are now 9-1 in their last ten and have been moving up in the standings ever since the middle of June. Passing the Lehigh Valley IronPigs and Worcester Red Sox in recent weeks, the club is now just one and a half games behind the division-leading RailRiders, but there still is work to be done.

That work will continue in Buffalo, as the team travels back to their home in the coming weeks, but before the Herd can get back to Western New York, they have other business to handle first.

In the next series, the Bisons will travel to Worcester to take on the Red Sox. This series will be pivotal to the Triple-A Northeast division standings as the Herd look to gain more ground over the Woo Sox, who sit seven and a half games behind Buffalo.

The Bisons also sit just a game and a half behind the division-leading Scranton Wilkes-Barre RailRiders, so a solid series by the Herd and a few slip-ups by the RailRiders could lead to the Herd taking the division lead.

The series between the Bisons (44-25) and Woo Sox (37-33) begins on Tuesday at 6:35 pm. Buffalo’s starter on the mound is yet to be announced.