Simoneit delivers walk-off hit as Bisons edge Clippers 6-5 in 10 innings

William Simoneit turned another Buffalo-Columbus knife fight into a Bisons win, lining his third hit of the night for the walk-off RBI in a 6-5, 10-inning finish at Sahlen Field. Buffalo out-hit Columbus 10-7, but the game still came down to which club handled the tightest spots better.

Grant Rogers gave Buffalo the kind of start that keeps a game within reach. The right-hander, who opened the season as the Bisons’ Opening Day starter, worked 5.0 innings and allowed only three hits, one walk and no earned runs while striking out three. He retired the side in order to begin the night and handed off a game that stayed controlled long enough for Buffalo to build on an early lead.

That lead came in the bottom of the third, when Simoneit opened the inning with a double to left field and later scored on a Josh Kasevich single. Kasevich was one of Buffalo’s sharpest bats throughout the night, finishing 3-for-4 with a walk, an RBI and two runs scored. His traffic on the bases helped Buffalo keep pressure on Columbus even as the Clippers answered and pushed the game into extra innings.

Columbus kept finding ways to extend the contest, but Buffalo’s lineup kept stringing together enough at-bats to avoid letting the game slip away. Jonatan Clase contributed to that steady pressure with his speed and on-base work, and the Bisons stayed in position long enough for Simoneit to settle the ending. The 29-year-old catcher from Park Ridge, Illinois, who played at Wake Forest, came through when the game demanded a clean swing in a tense spot.

The walk-off capped a homestand that has already forced Buffalo to show its resilience against Columbus. The Bisons had dropped the series opener 5-2 before rebounding in the middle game, and Thursday’s win, played in 65-degree clear weather with 3,237 in attendance, added another close finish to a six-game set running through April 27. On a night that lasted 3 hours and 13 minutes, Buffalo did not just survive another one-run game. It finished one.