The moment came several hours after they hoped and it took help from out of town, but the Buffalo Bisons have clinched a division championship for the first time since 2005.
The Herd wrapped up the Northeast Division title of Triple-A East late Thursday night when the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders gave up four runs in the bottom of the eighth and suffered a 9-5 loss to the Lehigh Valley IronPigs in Allentown, Pa.
Earlier in the day at Rochester's Frontier Field, the Bisons didn't score over the final five innings and fell to the Rochester Red Wings 5-3. A win could have allowed them to clinch the title on the field.
But ultimately, that doesn't matter. Buffalo is 70-44 with three games left, en route to its best winning percentage since the 2001 team went 91-51 in winning the International League North. Scranton fell to 65-48 with four games to go, meaning the RailRiders can't catch the Bisons.
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The Bisons join Durham (74-42) and Toledo (69-48) as division champions in the first season of Triple-A East. Durham has a three-game lead over the Bisons and a magic number of 1 to clinch the league's overall title. There are no playoffs this season, but all 30 Triple-A teams will participate in a "Final Stretch" tournament that opens Wednesday night with the Bisons hosting Lehigh Valley in Sahlen Field.
The division championship is the 10th in the Herd's modern era dating to 1985 and the first since Buffalo aligned with the Toronto Blue Jays in 2013. Seven of the titles came from 1995-2005 when the Bisons were an affiliate of the Cleveland Indians. The Herd also won back-to-back American Association East Division titles in 1991 and 1992 while with the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Buffalo's 2005 crown was the last one it earned in the International League. The Bisons ended their IL history with the longest playoff drought in the league when the 2020 season was canceled and Major League Baseball took over the minors and reorganized them for 2021.
In his first season as a Triple-A manager, former Buffalo utility man Casey Candaele – an alum of Buffalo's playoff teams of 1995-97 -- took the team to the top of its division in one of its most difficult seasons. With the Blue Jays playing at Sahlen Field, the Bisons were orphaned to Trenton, N.J. for their home games over the first three months of the season. But the Bisons persevered, going 29-13 in Trenton Thunder Ballpark before finally moving to Buffalo on Aug. 10.
The Bisons have only gone 10-8 in Sahlen Field but essentially won the division with their seven-game sweep in Scranton from Aug. 31-Sept. 5. That was part of a franchise-record, 12-game winning streak that put the Herd in control. Buffalo is 14-3 in its last 17 games.
The Herd couldn't win the title on its own Thursday, largely because starting pitcher Nick Allgeyer (4-5) gave up a pair of two-out home runs. Rochester's Rafael Batista blasted a three-run homer to center field in the first to open the scoring and Raudy Read's two-run shot in the fifth, a liner just over the wall in left, snapped a 3-3 tie.
The Bisons battled back from a 3-0 deficit to tie the game with a run in the third on Otto Lopez's single and two more in the fourth on an RBI double from Cullen Large and RBI single from Nash Knight.
The Bisons and Red Wings have three games remaining in Frontier Field, starting at 6:05 p.m. Friday (Radio 1520 AM). Right-hander Bowden Francis (9-5, 4.00) pitches for Buffalo. The teams conclude the regular season with games at 6 p.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday.
