Chiefs drop season finale to Bisons

The Syracuse Chiefs, the Triple-A affiliate of the Washington Nationals, dropped their final game of the season to the Buffalo Bisons on Monday, 4-2. The Chiefs fell into an early 3-0 after the top of the third inning and were unable to climb out.

Buffalo (74-70) wasted no time with its bats, scoring the game's first run in the initial inning. After a one-out double from Jack Murphy, Mauro Gomez struck out swinging. Then, with two outs and Murphy on second base, Luis Jimenez singled through the right side of the infield, plating Murphy and giving the Bisons an early 1-0 lead.

The Bisons padded their lead in the top of the third inning with two more runs. The rally began with a one-out single by Mike McCoy. Then, with Murphy batting, McCoy stole second base. Three pitches later, Murphy reached on an infield single to the shortstop Zach Walters, whose throw sailed over first base, allowing McCoy to score. The next batter, Gomez, launched a double into left field, advancing Murphy to third base. Jimenez followed with a fly ball to left field, allowing Murphy to score on the sacrifice fly. The rally ended when Andy LaRoche grounded out to shortstop, but the Bisons led 3-0.

Syracuse (66-78) got on the scoreboard in the bottom of the third inning. Chris Rahl led off with a base hit into right field. Rahl then stole second base with Jimmy Van Ostrand at the plate. In the same at-bat, Van Ostrand lined a single up the middle, scoring Rahl and cutting the deficit to 3-1.

In the top of the fourth, though, Buffalo scored again with just one swing of the bat. With one out and no one on base, Brad Glenn cracked a home run over the right-center field wall. Glenn's fifth home run of the season extended the Bison's lead to 4-1.

Then, the scoring hit a standstill until the bottom of the seventh inning. Chris Marrero led off with a base hit through the right side of the infield. After a Walters single, Rahl popped out to second base. Then, Van Ostrand came to the plate with runners on first and second with one out. Van Ostrand grounded into a 6-4 fielder's choice, but LaRoche's throw sailed over first base for an error, allowing Marrero to score, slicing the deficit to 4-2.

Syracuse threatened in the bottom of the eighth inning, but to no avail. After Jeff Kobernus reached on a one-out error by the third baseman Gomez, Will Rhymes doubled into deep right-center field. Following a Corey Brown strikeout, Marrero walked to load the bases. Then, Walters came to the plate with two outs and the bases loaded. The rally ended there, though, when Walters grounded out to second base.

The next time the Chiefs will take the field will be on Thursday, April 3, 2014 at 2:00 against the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders.