Bisons notebook
Stoner’s debut pushed back a day
The postponement of Thursday’s game between the Bisons and Syracuse Chiefs also delayed the Triple-A debut of Buffalo right-hander Tobi Stoner until tonight’s opener of a four-game series against the Charlotte Knights in Fort Mill, S. C.
“I was definitely excited [about
the first start with the Bisons],” said Stoner, a 25-year-old who was drafted and signed by the New York Mets in 2006 after playing at Davis &Elkins College in West Virginia.
When Stoner got to Coca-Cola Field on Thursday morning and saw the mist over the field, he feared the worst—that the game would eventually be called off.
“You can’t control nature,” he said with resignation.
The infield was completely covered with a tarpaulin at about game time (1 p. m.), and the game was called after nearly an hour and a half delay while the persistent drizzle saturated the outfield already wet from Wednesday night’s rain. The game will be made up as part of a doubleheader when the Chiefs come back to town in August.
Bisons manager Ken Oberkfell is eager to get a look at Stoner in action.
“I’m looking forward to it. I’ve never seen him pitch. I know he’s got good stuff,” Oberkfell said.
For Stoner, tonight’s start will be another step in a mini-comeback from a spring shoulder injury that caused the Mets to shut him down for a month.
Stoner calls himself “a sore guy,” meaning that he needs four or five days of recovery from soreness after a start. Stoner has pitched in 72 games, all as a starter, since turning pro in 2006 with the Brooklyn Cyclones of the New York-Penn League.
Although he’s used to pain and soreness in his pitching arm, Stoner said he was especially “nervous” when he woke up one morning in spring training in Port St. Lucie, Fla.
“It was a different kind of pain, like I never felt before,” he said.
The injury was called an “impingement.”
The scary part was Stoner lost range of motion in his pitching shoulder, which had locked up. Since the injury Stoner has followed a regimen to keep the pitching arm and shoulder flexible.
“It’s heat and stretch every day to keep my arm flexible,” he said.
After a month off and another month of extended spring training, Stoner went to Double-A Binghamton. He made seven starts there and was 2-2 with a 2.68 earned-run average before his promotion to the Herd. His last start in Binghamton was a complete game seven-inning shutout at Trenton a week ago.
Now, the next step comes tonight at Knights Stadium in South Carolina, across the stateline from Charlotte.
•••
Thursday’s postponement means the Bisons and Chiefs will play consecutive doubleheaders at Coca-Cola Field on Aug. 20 and 21, the Chiefs’ only scheduled appearance here the rest of the season. Both doubleheaders will consist of two seven-inning games. The first twin bill, which starts at 1:05 p. m., is a result of the rainout of Wednesday night’s game. The time of the Aug. 21 doubleheader has yet to be determined. A 7:35 p. m. single game had been scheduled for that date.
Despite the rainout of the two home games, the remainder of the Herd’s schedule is heavily weighted toward road games. Buffalo has 48 away games and only 32 home games left on the schedule.
Fans holding tickets to Thursday’s game can exchange them for a comparable ticket for any future 2009 Bisons game (excluding special events). All ticket exchanges must be made at the Coca-Cola Field box office throughout the remainder of the season.
•••
Stoner will become the 52nd different Bison to play in the 63 games so far this season. The number of players used in the entire 143-game 2008 season was 63. No fewer than four different players have started at each position in the lineup so far. The breakdown: Catcher (5), first base (5), second base (6), third base (9), shortstop (8), left field (7), center field (4), right field (9) and designated hitter (8 in the 34 games a DH was used). That’s very close at each position to what the breakdown was for the entire 2008 season.
Despite the numbers, Oberkfell, who has managed 15 seasons, doesn’t see the heavy roster turnover as all that unusual for the minor leagues at the Triple-A level. After all the filtering out of the not ready, not interested or not executing, Oberkfell feels more confident with the roster at his disposal.
“We’ve got some veteran players with experience in the minors and major league level,” Oberkfell said.
•••
Thursday’s rainout moved the starting pitching assignments back one day. After Stoner tonight, Jonathon Niese, Nelson Figueroa and Brandon Knight are the scheduled starters for the Herd against Charlotte. The Bisons will begin a four-game series against the Gwinnett Braves in Georgia next Tuesday. The next home game is against Charlotte on June 27 in the opener of a four-game series.
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