McAdoo’s five hits not enough, Bisons fall 7-5 to IronPigs

Charles McAdoo delivered a career-high five hits, yet Buffalo still left Coca-Cola Park with a 7-5 loss and a missed chance to turn a big offensive night into a series-opening win.

The Bisons’ trouble was not traffic, but timing. Buffalo collected 13 hits and got three from Ismael Munguia, but too many of the early chances went uncashed while Lehigh Valley built separation in the middle innings. The IronPigs scored three runs in the fifth and four more in the sixth, then held off Buffalo’s late push in the opener of a six-game series Tuesday morning in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

McAdoo was at the center of Buffalo’s best work. His five-hit game was his first in two years and the first by a Bison since the 2024 season, and his final swing was the one that briefly made the scoreboard feel salvageable. McAdoo drilled a three-run homer in the ninth inning, his sixth of the season, to finish with 17 RBI and pull Buffalo within two runs. The rally, though, arrived after Lehigh Valley had already stacked enough runs to control the game.

Lehigh Valley built that lead behind Otto Kemp, who authored the most damaging swing of the afternoon for Buffalo. Kemp tied a franchise record with seven RBI, launching a three-run homer in the fifth and a grand slam in the sixth. He became only the third IronPig to drive in seven runs in a game, and that burst turned a close contest into a buffer the Bisons could not erase.

Buffalo also had to patch together the game on the mound. Hayden Juenger made his first start of the season in a bullpen game and struck out three over 1 2/3 innings as one of six pitchers used by the Bisons. Bryse Wilson answered with five scoreless innings for Lehigh Valley to earn the win, and Andrew Walling finished the final two outs for the save.

The loss left Buffalo with the kind of line that frustrates a clubhouse because it suggests both promise and waste. The bats produced enough volume to threaten, but three errors and a fifth- and sixth-inning collapse handed the opener to Lehigh Valley anyway. The series continued Wednesday, May 6, at 6:45 p.m., with Buffalo needing cleaner execution to match the offense it finally found too late.