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Though Wednesday June 10 was a day off for the Buffalo Bisons it was far from uneventful as the parent club New York Mets announced that Bisons Hitting Coach Luis Natera was being re-assigned to Double-A Binghamton.

Bill Masse has been named as Natera’s replacement.

The move was hardly as shock as local media have speculated for weeks that Natera should be first on the chopping block if and when the Mets decided to make coaching changes.

Under Natera’s watch the Herd were a league worst .228 in team batting average in the 14-team International League.

As well as last in hits (416), home runs (31), slugging (.333), and RBIs (151).

The most notable offensive washout was top-10 prospect Nick Evans who hit just .093 in 22 games with the Herd before being sent to Binghamton.

A 13-year veteran of coaching in the minors the 42-year-old Masse is in first season with the Mets organization and had been serving as the Binghamton Mets Hitting Coach.

Guiding the B-Mets to fourth in the Eastern League with a .269 team batting average the B-Mets are fourth in walks (219) and second in stolen bases (42).

Originally a seventh round pick of the New York Yankees in 1988, Masse’s coaching stints has seen him make stops with Sand Diego, Toronto, the Yankees and Montreal Expos.

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The Bisons hit the June 10th day off still the owners of the dubious honor of the worst record in all of Triple-A.

Just 17-39 with a .309 winning percentage the Herd is 16.5 games out of first place in the IL North Division and 3-7 in their last 10 games.

“That’s what I’m looking for we still haven’t found the consistency,” said Bisons manager Ken Oberkfell. “I’m disappointed in our record obviously but the highlight would be the development of Fernando (Martinez) who ended up going to the big leagues he did a nice job. (Nick) Evans was disappointing with the way he started because he was obviously going to be one of our big offensive threats. I’m pleased with our pitching. Our pitching has been real solid. We’ve played pretty good defense, we just haven’t hit with runners in scoring position. I was looking at the stats today and it’s not just one (guys) it’s everybody.”

Obviously in the minors it’s about development first, winning second. But Oberkfell is a firm believer in cultivating a winning attitude as well as skills.

“That’s part of development, winning,” he said. “You try to develop winning players. And these guys have won, some of them have won at the Major League level so I think, I don’t know, it’s almost contagious. One guy struggles everybody struggles but hopefully a couple guys will get hot because we’ve still go 90-something games. We’ve got a lot of games left. I just want to see more consistency.”

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The Bisons gets back to work Thursday at 1:05 p.m. when they host Durham in the opening game of a four-game series with the Bulls.