In the midst of all our ballpark touring and exploring last night was that there was a pretty darned good baseball game on the field as well. And when it was all over, the Buffalo Bisons had themselves a 5-4 win over the Iron Pigs, after having dropped both games of a doubleheader the night before.

Much of Buffalo’s run production came via the long ball, a first inning two run shot by Todd Linden, then Buffalo got the lead for good in the 6th with a two run homer by Jason Cooper.

Matt Ginter got the win for the Herd, but got into a lot of trouble in the fifth inning, even giving up the lead before getting a much needed strikeout with the bases loaded to contain the damage. After the game, Manager Torey Lovullo said “It was that strikeout but it was a lot more tonight. It was that big first inning home run that set the tone, but certainly Matt (Ginter) came up with the big pitches when he needed to.”

With closer Rick Bauer now playing in the bigs, Lovullo is trying different combinations in the late innings to achieve success. Last night, Tom Mastny pitched the 8th with Jeff Stevens pitching the 9th to earn the save. Neither pitcher allowed a runner on base. Said Lovullo, “We’re trying to structure things. Jeff (Stevens) has a great track record as a closer. He’s going to get the bulk of that time in the 9th inning… We like what we see in that role, Mastny in the 8th and Stevens in the 9th.”

We spoke at length with Torey as well as a couple of players about their impressions of Coca Cola Park, and that will be the topic of our next Play Ball column in Artvoice.

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