BASEBALL
Niese gets Herd back on track
LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. — Jonathon Niese’s pitching rebound continued Thursday night.
The Buffalo Bisons left-hander, who started the International League season with six straight losses, won his third consecutive start with a 5-1 victory over the Gwinnett Braves.
The win before 4,445 at Gwinnett Stadium snapped the Herd’s four-game losing streak.
Niese (3-6) pitched six scoreless innings before Gwinnett’s only run was credited against him after he was lifted in the seventh. He allowed six hits, fanned six and walked two. Box score
“It was more of a battle today, but the defense made some outstanding plays behind me and I executed pitches when I needed to,” Niese said. “My last few outings have been pretty good. I’m just trying to build off each outing. I’m trying to work on my fastball command and trying to pitch to contact early.”
Niese’s scoreless streak reached 24x innings before he gave up a leadoff single in the seventh to Chris Burke and a double to Brian Barton. Alvin Colina hit a sacrifice fly off reliever Tim McNab that scored Burke for the Braves’ only run.
“We’re playing a lot better baseball than we were earlier in the year. . . We’re competitive and I don’t think teams look and say, ‘Oh, good, here comes Buffalo in town,’ because we can beat anybody at any time and we did tonight,” said Bison manager Ken Oberkfell.
The Bisons got all the runs they needed in the first inning when Cory Sullivan walked, went to third on Jesus Feliciano’s single, and scored on Chip Ambres’ single. Feliciano later scored on a fielder’s choice.
Right-hander Nelson Figueroa (2-4, 2.70 ERA) will face lefty John Halama (0-0, 1.69) in the series finale tonight (7 p. m., Radio 1520 AM).
The Bisons return to Coca-Cola Field on Saturday night to open a four-game series against Charlotte.
Log into MyBuffalo to post a comment
MyBuffalo is the new social network from Buffalo.com. Your MyBuffalo account lets you comment on and rate stories at buffalonews.com. You can also head over to mybuffalo.com to share your blog posts, stories, photos, and videos with the community. Join now or learn more.
Reader comments