A season-high crowd of 10,213 watches Rochester lose, 4-2, to the Bisons.
By CRAIG POTTER
ROCHESTER, N.Y. — The Rochester Red Wings were unable to take advantage of scoring opportunities as they lost their third consecutive game to the Buffalo Bisons on Monday afternoon before a season-high crowd of 10,213 fans at Frontier Field.
“It wasn’t like we kicked the ball around or anything like that,” Red Wings manager Joel Skinner said. “We just fell short.
“What went bad was they scored more than we did.”
For the third straight game the Bisons broke on top first. Red Wings starter Zack Littell hit leadoff hitter Reese McGuire in the third. Two singles later loaded the bases where Richard Urena lofted a sacrifice fly to score the run.
The Wings knotted the contest in the fifth when Wynston Sawyer laced a 1-out single. Nick Buss followed with a double and Jermaine Curtis sent a sacrifice fly to right that plated Sawyer.
However, the Bisons responded with 2 runs in the sixth. Danny Jansen 2-run single was the third consecutive hit for Buffalo. Littell got out of the frame without further damage as he gave up 3 runs on 6 hits, walked 2 and struck out 6 batters.
Rochester got one run back in the home half as Nick Gordon collected his third single of the game with one out. Jake Cave singled hi to third when he scampered home on Kennys Vargas’s sacrifice fly.
“It takes a little while to get comfortable,” said Gordon, who was recently call-up to Rochester. “It’s just the same game. Just trying to stay with the same things I’ve been doing and get better.”
Buffalo tacked on an insurance run in the eighth to complete the scoring.
The Bisons won 5 of the 6 games in the series.
“We’re fighting,” said Gordon. “We don’t give up…We’re gonna find some hits to fall and get some key outs and things like that. It’s two teams playing, they’re hoping the same thing as well. We definitely played well, we fought hard, that’s all we can ask for.”
*NOTES — Fans enjoyed a 50-cent hot dog promotion Monday courtesy of Zweigle’s, to the tune of 11,162 hots consumed during the game…The Red Wings have dropped to second in the International League with a 3.24 ERA, which has risen from 2.98 subce Friday’s doubleheader. Rochester has thrown 7 shutouts, including 4 in the last 12 outings, and allowed 3 or fewer runs in 25 of 47 games this season. The Wings tossed 10 shutouts all of 2017…The Red Wings hit the road for 6 games, starting with 3 against the Durham Bulls Tuesday night, then 3 games versus Norfolk. The Wings return home on Tuesday, June 5 against Indianapolis.