Riley Adams Notches First Two Triple-A Homers in 8-6 Defeat
May 8, 2021 - International League (IL) - Buffalo Bisons News Release
Heading into the 2021 season, Riley Adams was rated by Baseball America as the best power hitter in the Blue Jays farm system. Fans at Trenton Thunder Ballpark on Saturday night found out why.
In just his second career Triple-A game, Adams hit his first Bisons home run and added a second blast two innings later in an 8-6 Worcester victory over the Herd. With the defeat, Buffalo fell to 3-2 on the year.
Adams joined the Bisons a few days into the season, having been called up -though not appearing in a game- by the Blue Jays just as the club arrived in Toronto. After going 0-for-5 in his Triple-A debut on Friday, the big catcher swung the loudest bat in the Herd's lineup in the slugfest defeat.
With the Herd trailing 5-3 in the fourth inning, Adams sat back beautifully on a 2-1 curveball from WooSox starter Kyle Hart and drove the pitch out to straight away centerfield, banking the ball off the batter's eye and back into the field of play.
Then in the fifth, Adams was up against the side-winding righty, Seth Blair, when he went with a fastball over the heart of the plate and drove to the opposite field in right-center and out of the ballpark.
Adams, who did not play in 2020 and spent the summer at the Blue Jays alternate training site in Rochester, NY, hit 11 home runs with the Double-A New Hampshire Fisher Cats in 2019.
The Red Sox got on the board early, greeting Bisons starter Jacob Waguespack with four straight base runners to open the game. Singles by Jarren Duran and Jeter Downs and a walk from Chris Herrmann loaded the bases for Yairo Munoz RBI-single into right. Waguespack then balked home a second run before striking out the next three batters to end the inning.
It was more of the same in the second as the top three WooSox hitters reached base to load them up again. A sacrifice fly from Hermann and a two-run single from Munoz gave Worcester a 5-0 lead.
The Bisons almost got all the way back with three runs of their own in the second and one more on Adams' first homer in the third. The Herd's best chance to tie the game came in the fourth when Dilson Herrera led off the inning with a triple but was thrown out at home on a soft roller back to the mound from Forrest Wall.
Waguespack suffered the defeat in an up-and-down outing. The righty did strike out nine batters in four innings, but also yielded 10 hits.
The Bisons offense, meanwhile, went 3-for-16 with runners in scoring position and left eight men on base. The two teams combined to strike out 34 times while Bisons pitchers getting the better of the WooSox batters 18 times. Along with Waguespack's nine strikeouts, Dany Jimenez fanned two, Bryan Baker set down four and Hobie Harris knotched three punchouts.
The Bisons still have a chance to take the series on Sunday afternoon with a 1:00 p.m. first pitch against the Red Sox.
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