Carlos Cortes hit two home runs and the Syracuse Mets beat Buffalo 8-5 in 10 innings

The score of the box

Buffalo, New York – The Syracuse Mets weren’t denied Saturday night at Sahlen Field, surviving multiple comeback attempts from the Buffalo Bisons in a ten-inning 8-5 win over the Bisons. The Mets spent a lot of time in Western New York this week. Syracuse has already won the series, winning four of the first five games of the six-game series.

It literally took one pitch for Syracuse (50-29, 4-1) to get ahead, as Luisangel Acuña pounced on the first pitch of the game and smashed it over the left field fence to take a lead 1-0 just like that. It was Acuña’s fifth home run of the season and it traveled approximately 418 feet over the wall.

The Mets added another in the top of the fourth when Carlos Cortes blasted a solo shot over the left-field fence, continuing his strong week in Western New York as the Mets took a 2-0 advantage.

From there, the focus turned to Joey Lucchesi, and the Mets starter kept Buffalo (38-41, 1-4) stumped for much of the night. Lucchesi had a walk-off hit in the seventh inning, racking up seven strikeouts over six brilliant innings to start the game.

In the seventh inning, the script changed, with the Bisons finally scoring some runs. After Rafael Lantigua struck out to lead off the inning, Riley Tirotta walked and Damiano Palmegiani singled to put two runners on base with one out. That prompted a call to the bullpen, with Lucchesi replaced by Eric Orze. The first batter Orze faced was Gabriel Cancel, who changed the game with a powerful swing. Cancel hit a three-run home run over the right-center field fence, making it 3-2 in a flash.

The Mets came out of this seventh inning without further damage, still being only one run behind before the eighth inning. In this eighth round, Syracuse showed remarkable resilience to regain the advantage immediately. After the first two batters of the inning retired in order, Mike Brosseau drew a walk with two outs to keep the inning alive. Then, on a 3-2 pitch after being down 1-2 earlier in the inning, Pablo Reyes smoked a two-run home run over the left-center field wall to put the Mets back in front , 4-3. It was Syracuse’s third home run of the night, accounting for all of their runs up to that point.

In the bottom of the ninth, the Bisons, running out of resources, responded again. In the top of the inning, Riley Tirotta hit a game-tying home run over the left-field fence to tie the game at 4-4. The question now was whether Buffalo could push the extra run to win the game in regulation. The Bisons couldn’t, though Buffalo put two runners on base with one out, Max Kranick was able to throw out back-to-back batters and send the game into extra innings.

At the start of the tenth inning, the Mets once again demonstrated their resilience, scoring several runs with two outs to take the lead for good. Acuña was the free runner at second base with no one out and advanced to third base on a groundout by Brett Baty. Acuña was left stranded at third base on a Rylan Bannon strikeout. Then, Mike Brosseau continued his momentum. On the eighth pitch of the inning, Brosseau hit a single to left field to give the Syracuse Mets a 5-4 lead. The Mets aren’t done with this. Reyes hit a single to put two runners on base with two outs, followed by another Cortes home run to completely blow the game away in the tenth inning. Cortes’ three-run home run turned the game into an 8-4 game and ultimately put the game out of Buffalo’s reach. It was a two-homer night for Cortes and his fifth and sixth home runs of the season.

The Bisons only collected one run in the bottom of the tenth, which was far from enough since the Mets outlasted Buffalo with an 8-5 final in ten innings on Saturday night. The game lasted three hours and seven minutes, which was only the ninth game this season that lasted more than three hours for Syracuse. The match was marked by mood swings and late attacks. 11 of the last 13 points of the combined game between the two teams came from the seventh inning. The Mets were also incredibly good in the late innings down the stretch. Six of Syracuse’s final eight runs came on two-strike pitches with two outs in one inning.

The Syracuse Mets end their week on the road against the Toronto Blue Jays’ Triple-A affiliate, the Buffalo Bisons. Game 6 of the six-game series against the Bisons is scheduled for first pitch at 1:05 p.m. Sunday. Right-hander Balde Tidwell is expected to start for the Mets against right-hander Aaron Sanchez for the Bisons.