The Buffalo Bisons start their season this afternoon, at home. March baseball in Northern New York, yummy!
The Bisons are the only minor league affiliate in action this weekend so I will update this thread over the weekend with a summary.
Ricky Tiedemann starts today.
Fridays Game
Ricky Tiedemann gave up a home run to Greg Allen to lead off the game. Tiedemann threw a breaking ball that got too much of the plate. Ricky Needed 21 pitches to get through the first inning.It might have been Tiedemann's first time pitching in weather that cool, five degrees at game time.
Tiedemann throw 65 pitches over 2.2 innings with just the home run on his ERA.
Brandon Eisert was royally roughed up and his ERA is 94.50. Tough start to the season, its better than infinity.
Spencer Horwitz did not fare well in spring training but he was happy to return to AAA. In his first at-bat he fouled off three two strike pitches before homering on the ninth pitch of the at-bat. He had two hits in the game, as did Nathan Lukes, Damiano Palmegiani and Addison Barger. Bisons lose.
Saturdays Game
Paulo Espino gave the Bisons a good start, six shutout innings four hits. But once again the bullpen lost the game for the Bisons. Troy Watson gave up three runs in relief and after the Bisons tied the game in the eighth, Zack Pop took the loss in the ninth. Three of the four runners who scored for Scranton reached via walk.
The Bisons scored three runs, all from solo home runs. Max McDowell, Will Robertson and Nathan Lukas went deep.
Sundays Game
Buffalo won their first game of the year on Sunday with a 4-3 score. They had a chance to win on Friday and Saturday and it was surprising to me that the manager did not call on either Hagen Danner or Connor Cooke to pitch in either of those games. To me, they are two of the stronger pitchers in the bullpen. Well they both pitched on Sunday, Danner got the win and Cooke the save.
The game winning hit came from Spencer Horwitz who drove in two runs in the bottom of the eighth. Horwitz also walked twice. Rafael Lantigua had two hits and Payton Henry hit his first home run. Many of the batting averages are as cold as the weather.
Chad Dallas made his first AAA start. He was charged with three runs on seven hits over five innings. He had two strikeouts.
The Bisons now head out on the road to Worcester, Mass. I don't think it will be much warmer there.
