Buffalo survives late scare to defeat IronPigs 10-9

It seems that the hotter the weather gets, the hotter Buffalo’s bats look, and the theme was no different Wednesday night. As the temperature hit near triple-digits at Trenton Thunder Ballpark the Buffalo Bisons posted their second consecutive double-digit run total to beat the Leigh Valley IronPigs 10-9.

The scoring downpour began after with Buffalo Down 2-0 after the top half of the third inning. Alejandro Kirk and Rowdy Tellez tied the game at two in the bottom of the third on a sacrifice fly and a chip single into right field before Christian Colon broke the tie hammering a three-run home run to left field for his eighth longball of the year to give the Herd a 5-2 advantage.

The IronPigs bounced back and took the lead sixth scoring four runs thanks to a trio of doubles by Ryan Cordell, Dalton Guthrie and Charlie Tilson to give Leigh Valley a 7-6 lead.

But Logan Warmoth had an answer extending his nine-game hitting streak in spectacular fashion launching a first-pitch game-breaking three-run home run to left field to take a 9-7 lead in the sixth. Tyler White and Cullen Large watched the ball soar from the basepaths after leading off the inning with consecutive singles.

“I'm just trying to find a good ball up and put a pretty good swing on it,” said Logan Warmoth. “I missed a couple of good sliders early on in the game so I kind of felt like using a slider was coming and first pitch I just put a good swing on it.”

Kevin Smith shadowed Warmoth’s moves an inning later and continued on a tear of his own leading off the seventh with his twelfth home run of the year for his 39th RBI of the season, second-most in the Triple-A East.

Buffalo finished by accumulating 13 hits for the game and spreading the wealth with all but one batter not collecting a hit.

“As a team, we're all just pulling for each other and we're just going out there trying to win,” said Warmoth. “And we know that hitting often spurs up and down and we hit a down last road trip and we were scuffling and then now we are just trying to ride this time we are at now out.”

While some of the offense felt extra in the 12-2 victory the night before, every run was essential in game two to a trio of uncharacteristic trio of errors and uneven pitching.

Thomas Hatch made his sixth start of the season for Bisons while on an MLB rehab assignment since May 20 and put together a strong but uneven performance. With good velocity on his fastball but some patchy location with his off-speed pitches, Hatch finished the game pitching five innings, allowing three runs and committing a throwing error in the second that resulted in a run as he exited with the IronPigs having scored five runs.

After Buffalo took back the lead in the sixth, Tommy Milone put the Bisons into cruise control pitching perfect seventh and eighth innings. Milone has been with the Herd on a rehab assignment since June 27 and looked at his best Wednesday.

After Milone, the errors and uneven pitching returned as Bryan Baker pieced together a bumpy ninth-inning save. Baker allowed two singles and a triple but most notably committed a throwing error to first that put the tying run on base. But the righty battled his way to the end striking out a pair to end the game.

“He did not give up and he battled through it and ended up getting the save,” said Bisons’ manager Casey Candaele. “So, kudos to him for doing that and not giving in to what was going on.”

After 22 runs in the first two games of the series, Buffalo (29-19) will get back to work for game three Thursday night with a chance to take a 3-0 series lead and improve on their 17-9 June by starting 1-0 in July. The first pitch scheduled for 7:00 p.m. with lefty Zach Logue expected to battle IronPigs’ lefty Mark Appel.