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IL Buffalo Bisons

Bisons Regain Share of 1st with Doubleheader Sweep

August 31, 2021 - International League (IL)
Buffalo Bisons News Release


Having eight games in six days against the team you are chasing in the division race is a rare opportunity when there's only three weeks left in the regular season. Tuesday night in Moosic, PA, the Bisons took a huge step towards taking advantage of their late-season showdown with the RailRiders.

The Herd picked up wins of 5-0 and 3-1, holding Scranton/Wilkes-Barre to just three hits in each contest, in a doubleheader sweep from PNC Field that pulled the club even for first place with the RailRiders in Triple-A East's Northeast division.

The Bisons and RailRiders now have identical 59-41 records at the 100-game mark of the season, with each team slated to play 19 more regular-season games having each lost a game to the schedule. Six of those games will be Wednesday-Sunday this week with a scheduled doubleheader on Saturday.

The Bisons got tremendous pitching throughout Tuesday's doubleheader sweep as Bowden Francis struck out six over six innings in the game one victory while seven different relievers each worked a shutout inning in the ultimate 'bullpen game' in the game two shutout.

Francis was in control throughout his performance as the RailRiders had just two at-bats with runners in scoring position. The righty confidently turned a 1-4-3 doubleplay to erase a hit batter in the first inning, and struck out three consecutive batters between the third and fourth.

The only batter that got to Francis was former Bisons outfielder Jonathan Davis, who hit a solo home run in the second inning for the only RailRiders' run of the night. In their next confrontation, Francis struck out Davis with a pair of runners on base and two outs to end the only time Scranton/Wilkes-Barre threatened to score in game one.

Bryan Baker worked a scoreless seventh inning to close out game one win.

Then in game two, Kyle Johnston, A.J. Cole, Nate Pearson, Anthony Castro, Curtis Taylor, Julian Merryweather and Hobie Harris all got a chance to contribute to the shutout victory. Each reliever worked exactly an inning with Cole getting the win for being the first in the game after the 'starter' Johnston.

Cole worked a 1-2-3 inning with a pair of groundouts, while Pearson struck out all three batters he faced in the third. Castro allowed a one-out triple to Trey Amburgey in the fourth -the first RailRider to stand on third base in the first 11 innings of the night- but responded by striking out Donny Sands and getting a groundout from Rob Brantly.

Johnston and Tayler also had 1-2-3 frames while Merryweather worked around an infield single in his second appearance with the Bisons. The RailRiders loaded the bases on Harris with an infield single and two walks, but the hard-throwing righty ended the game with a shallow flyball to center.

Offensively, the Bisons followed the recipe the Red Sox used against them in Buffalo last week and scored early in each contest. Richard Urena hit a two-run home run in the first inning of game one and Otto Lopez and Cullen Large had RBI-hits in the first inning of game two. In both cases, the early runs were all the Herd needed for a win.

Large played both games and collected an impressive five extra-base hits. Along with two doubles in game one, he had an RBI-triple as part of a two-run seventh inning that sealed the win. Large then went 2-3 with two more doubles in the nightcap.

Nash Knight and Reggie Pruitt added home runs in games one and two respectively. For Pruitt, the blast to left in the fifth inning of game two came in his first career game with the Bisons.

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