Liriano is too good for Bisons
Losing streak hits six in Rochester
ROCHESTER— Triple-A baseball’s worst offensive team went up against one of its hottest pitchers Saturday night. The results were predictable.
Former Minnesota Twins all-star Francisco Liriano threw six shutout innings as the Rochester Red Wings blanked the punchless Buffalo Bisons, 2-0, before 8,587 in Frontier Field.
The Bisons have dropped six straight (four to Rochester) and fell 10 games below .500 for the second time this year at 40-50. They haven’t dropped seven in a row since May, 2003.
Liriano (6-2), a 12-game winner for Minnesota two years ago, is on his way back from elbow surgery. The Twins have to be thrilled with his last seven starts. In that span, he’s 6-0 with a 3.37 ERA and 45 strikeouts in 42c innings.
Liriano held Buffalo hitless until Chris Gimenez’s leadoff double in the fifth. Asdrubal Cabrera and Andy Gonzalez led off the sixth with singles but the threat ended when Michael Aubrey grounded into a double play and Todd Linden struck out. Relievers Casey Daigle and Bobby Korecky finished a four-hitter as 11 of the final 12 Buffalo hitters were retired.
“The reports we’re getting is that his slider has depth at the plate and we saw that,” said Buffalo manager Torey Lovullo. “It’s a lethal mix. When he’s right like this, he’s a major-leaguer.”
The Bisons are batting just .243, were retired in order five times and had just five baserunners all night. The lack of offense was a shame because Buffalo got a terrific pitching effort from right-hander Frank Herrmann, making his first Triple-A start after being promoted from Double-A Akron earlier in the day.
Herrmann, who was 8-3 for the Aeros, scattered eight hits over seven innings, struck out four and walked three. He said he felt particularly comfortable because he was throwing to Gimenez, his regular catcher in Akron until three weeks ago.
“My 14-year-old brother called me today and told me Liriano was starting for them,” Herrmann said. “That was cool but it really doesn’t affect anything I’m trying to do. I had enough going on with traveling here [from Binghamton] and it was nice not to think about a lot.”
“Incredible job,” Lovullo said. “I was just basically apologizing to him here for not getting him any run support. He did more than enough.”
Herrmann, 24, is a Harvard University product who wrote about his experiences in Cleveland’s spring training in 2006 for the school’s student newspaper. He won 11 games and was a Carolina League all-star last year at Class A Kinston.
Herrmann allowed the leadoff man to reach in five innings but kept getting out of trouble in part because he let the first two betters reach only once.
“My goal was to go out and throw strikes and give us a chance to win,” Herrmann said. “You don’t want to [let leadoff men on] but I knew I had some good defense behind me. They gave us some outs with bunts and you settle down with that first out.”
Rochester’s runs scored on Darnell Mc- Donald’s RBI single in the third and Ryan Jorgensen’s leadoff home run on the first pitch in the fifth.
“That will haunt me a little tonight,” Herrmann said of the home run. “It was a first-pitch fastball. We had just had a long inning at the plate and I settled in thinking it was their catcher so I thought he might take one. That was stupid of me.”
