Saints erupt for seven first-inning runs, cruise past Bisons 12-6
St. Paul piled up seven runs in the first inning, then kept pouring it on in a 12-6 win over Buffalo behind four homers and hits from all 10 Saints who played.
The St. Paul Saints buried Buffalo before the inning was over, scoring seven times in the first and cruising to a 12-6 win at CHS Field on June 30. The fast start turned the night into a long chase for the Bisons and gave St. Paul room to keep stacking runs instead of protecting a thin lead.
Alan Roden set the tone immediately with a leadoff home run to center field, his eighth of the season. Kaelen Culpepper and Walker Jenkins followed with singles, Matt Wallner was hit by a pitch, and Orlando Arcia brought in a run with a single. Gabriel Gonzalez added an RBI infield single to stretch his hitting streak to 15 games, and Cody Morissette finished the burst with a grand slam to center, his third homer of the year, his second with St. Paul and the second grand slam of his career. By the time Buffalo escaped the inning, the Bisons were already in a 7-0 hole.
The outburst fit the Saints’ season-long profile. St. Paul came into the game leading baseball in home runs, and its offense had already scored 82 runs before the first three outs of games, the most in the sport. This was the third time the Saints had scored at least seven runs in the first inning this season, a sign that opposing pitchers can be in trouble before they settle into the game.
The Saints kept pressing after the opening frame. Noah Cardenas added a solo home run in the sixth, his sixth of the season, and Wallner followed with a two-run blast, his 12th. St. Paul finished with four home runs and showed how deep the lineup can be when the damage starts early. All 10 Saints players who entered the game had at least one hit, six posted multi-hit nights, seven drove in at least one run and nine scored.
Buffalo never fully recovered from the first-inning knockout punch, though Josh Kasevich gave the visitors a late jolt with a solo homer in the eighth. It was his third home run of the season and his second straight game leaving the yard, but by then the Saints had already turned the game into a runaway. A crowd of 6,139 watched St. Paul keep adding layers to the lead and move comfortably past one of the more explosive offensive nights of its season.
This article was produced by Prism’s automated news system from verified source data, official records, and press releases, then run through automated quality and moderation checks before publishing. The system is built and supervised by the people who set the standards it runs under. Read our full AI policy.
Did this article answer your question?
