Buffalo uses two second-inning homers to beat Worcester 2-0 in weather-shortened game

Two second-inning swings were all Buffalo needed, and the weather did the rest. Josh Rivera and Je’Von Ward each launched solo home runs in the bottom of the second, Josh Fleming protected that lead through five innings, and the Bisons shut out Worcester 2-0 in a game that was cut short after four and a half innings at Sahlen Field.

The official Final/5 result came after a 31-minute weather delay, with first pitch at 1:05 p.m. and the game ending at 1:09. In a Triple-A game that barely lasted long enough to settle in, Buffalo turned a brief burst of power into a win that mattered just as much as a longer one would have. The Bisons improved to 23-21, while Worcester dropped to 22-20.

Rivera opened the scoring with one out in the second inning, driving his sixth homer of the season off Worcester starter Alec Gamboa. Two batters later, Ward followed with an opposite-field shot to left field for his second homer of the year, and his second in the last two games. That was the whole offensive script. Buffalo did not need a rally, a string of hits or a late push. It needed two well-timed mistakes from Worcester and made them count immediately.

Fleming made the lead hold. He worked 5.0 innings, allowed four hits, walked one and struck out four to earn the win and move to 2-2. Worcester never found a big inning against him, and only one baserunner reached scoring position in the shutout loss. Buffalo’s defense did commit one error, charged to Damiano McAdoo, but the WooSox could not turn that into anything meaningful.

The result gave Buffalo four wins in the first five games of the series against Worcester, a strong start against a club that had already shown it could make games uncomfortable if the scoreboard stayed close. Instead, this one never left the second inning as a contest with much mystery. Once Rivera and Ward went deep, the Bisons had the only runs they would need.

The game also fit neatly into Buffalo’s America’s 250th Celebration Weekend at Sahlen Field, a three-day stretch from May 15-17 that turned a weather-shortened afternoon into a sharp, efficient win. In a game where conditions compressed the margin for error, Buffalo’s two second-inning homers and Fleming’s five clean innings were enough to make the whole afternoon feel over in a hurry.