Yesavage solid, but Bisons fall to Red Wings in Buffalo debut

Trey Yesavage looked like a pitcher who belongs in a bigger debate than the box score suggested. The Toronto Blue Jays’ top prospect took a 6-3 loss in his Buffalo debut, but the right-hander still punched out five over 4.1 innings and showed enough life in his third outing on a Major League injury rehab assignment to keep the spotlight on his next step back toward Toronto.

Yesavage allowed three runs on seven hits at ESL Ballpark in Rochester, New York, and the Red Wings came out swinging immediately. Dylan Crews opened the scoring with a two-out solo homer in the first inning, a reminder that Triple-A lineups can punish even good pitches when the location drifts. Buffalo answered in the second after four straight batters reached, with Alex Stone drilling an RBI double in his first career Triple-A at-bat to pull the Bisons even and give the recently promoted infielder an instant headline of his own.

Rochester kept pressing. Andres Chaparro launched a solo homer in the second, then Trey Lipscomb added a run on a groundout double play to push the Red Wings back in front. Buffalo answered again in the third when Yohendrick Piñango singled and RJ Schreck followed with a two-run homer, his second long ball in as many games. For a stretch, Yesavage’s outing looked less like a rehab assignment and more like a pitcher testing whether his stuff still plays against upper-level hitters who are ready to sit on mistakes.

That is the part Toronto will care about. Yesavage is back from a right shoulder impingement that sent him to the 15-day injured list to open the season, and this was his first step up after a rehab start in Dunedin on April 3, when he worked 2.2 innings of one-run ball with three strikeouts. The Buffalo version was longer, sharper in volume, and more revealing. He did not dominate, but he filled the zone enough to miss bats, handled the workload cleanly, and stayed in the game until one out into the fifth.

The Red Wings broke it open later anyway. Riley Adams hammered a three-run homer in the sixth to make it 6-3, and Rochester’s bullpen did the rest. Jesse Hahn stranded the bases loaded when Yesavage exited, but Seth Shuman, Julian Fernández, Jack Sinclair and Eddy Yean combined to hold Buffalo scoreless over the final 4.2 frames, with Yean picking up his second save of the season.

The result moved Rochester to 9-7 and left Buffalo at 7-9, but the sharper takeaway came from Yesavage’s line and the way it looked. He lost on the scoreboard and may have improved his standing in the organization’s bigger pitching picture.