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Instead, the 25-year old righthander, the 15th overall selection in the 2005 draft who started the year with the Knights, struggled in yet another outing on Sunday afternoon. He allowed seven runs in five-plus innings as the Bisons fell, 7-3.

Broadway, since being acquired in a May 29 trade, has not been able to get past the sixth inning is any of his five starts with the Bisons. His woes are especially glaring at Coca-Cola Field, where he is 0-2 in three starts with a 10.93 earned run average.

“I wanted him to throw strikes and trust his stuff,” Bisons manager Ken Oberkfell said. “Sometimes he might get a little emotional and tries too hard.”

On two separate occasions Sunday, Broadway (1-5 overall, 1-3 with the Bisons) squandered leads. After Buffalo built a 1-0 edge in the first, he gave up a run in the second. Once the Bisons had a 3-1 advantage after three innings, he promptly gave up two in the top of the fourth.

“When you score, the pitcher’s job is to shut them down,” said Bisons manager Ken Oberkfell. “Then they got a couple of seeing-eye hits that got through.”

The sixth inning was Broadway’s undoing, as he exited after having the first four batters reach base without recording an out. A RBI single by Brandon Allen and a two-run triple by Brent Lillibridge finally sent Oberkfell out to replace his starter.

“He’s got to have command,” the skipper said. “When he’s throwing strikes with all his pitches, he’s pretty good. A lot of times, he gets himself behind in counts and goes deep in counts. He throws a lot of pitches and puts himself in hitter’s counts instead of pitcher’s counts.”

Broadway threw 44 strikes in a 75-pitch outing, the lowest figure since he came to the Bisons.

His counterpart, Charlotte’s Carlos Torres (7-4), was a model of efficiency. He allowed only five hits in seven innings, and threw 73 of his 107 pitches for strikes.

………

Buffalo grabbed its 3-1 in the third inning after one of the most surreal at-bats in club history.

With two out and the scoreboard showing a 1-2 count on Chip Ambres, home plate umpire Bobby Price, one of the International League’s more inconsistent umpires, signalled an apparent third strike. But Ambres was somehow still alive; after two pitches out of the strike zone, Ambres was directed to walk to first base.

“It was probably the weirdest at-bat I’ve ever had in my career,” Ambres said. “The second pitch was a ball but he gave the strike sign. Then he got mad at himself. The next pitch I swung, strike one. Then (there was a) curveball, strike two but he rung me up. Then (Torres) came back and threw me another ball. I was puzzled because I didn’t know what the count was.”

Emil Brown followed with a line shot over the right field wall, breaking a 1-1 tie with his second homer as a Bison.

“He went with the pitch,” Oberkfell said. “They pitched him away and he stayed on it. Unfortunately he was about the only guy to hit some balls well.”

Brown had three of Buffalo’s six hits and drove in all of the team’s runs. In addition to his homer, he singled in Jesus Feliciano with the game’s first run.

………

Another umpiring gaffe occurred in the Buffalo fourth. Javier Castillo delivered a base hit and was safe at second after the ball skipped on a wet outfield. But Castillo was ruled out when umpire Lance Barrett claimed he was tagged after stepping off the bag. Replays showed he was never contacted while taking a split-second hop off the base.