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Trouble is, their first game after the All-Star break looked an awful lot like many performances from the season’s first three months.

Thursday night, the Herd scored two runs only after spotting the Toledo Mud Hens a 6-0 lead and eventually fell by a 6-2 score.

Bisons starter Tobi Stoner worked seven innings for the second straight outing, but the results were markedly different from his last start at Pawtucket last Friday.

Stoner got the win against the Pawsox, shutting them down on one hit and two walks. Toledo outdid that in the first inning alone, hitting for the cycle as a team and plating three runs on a two-run homer by Wilkin Ramirez and an RBI triple by Brent Clevlen.

“They just hit pitches that I thought were pretty decent,” Stoner said. “I expected to get hit, but not like that.”

“He didn’t throw the ball all that bad,” added Bisons manager Ken Oberkfell. “The numbers might reflect that he struggled, but he didn’t.”

Stoner (2-3) was touched for two more runs in the fourth and another in the seventh, but also recorded four hitless innings. He finished with six strikeouts.

Meanwhile, the Bisons bats were unproductive against Toledo starter Brooks Brown (3-7). The Herd finally came through with a run in their half of the seventh on back-to-back doubles by Emil Brown and Chip Ambres. A ninth-inning rally produced another run, but Wilson Valdez looked at a third strike with two out and the bases loaded.

Before that, their best chance came in the fourth, when the first two batters singled. After a ground out and a strikeout, Nick Evans walked to load the bases. Brown ended the inning, though, on a grounder.

“We didn’t get the big hit,” commented Oberkfell. “We’ve seen it a lot. We saw it again tonight. It seems like every time we get behind early at home, we can’t get it going.”

………

Bisons infielder Javier Castillo went 0-for-4, ending his hitting streak at 16 games. During the streak, he batted .361 (22-for-61) with three homers and seven RBI. It was the second-longest active streak in the International League, trailing former Bison Trevor Crowe of Columbus, who extended his streak to 18 games on Thursday against Syracuse.

Scranton/Wilkes-Barre’s Todd Linden, yet another former Bison, still owns the league’s longest streak of the season at 19 games.

………

Oberkfell nearly didn’t make it to Buffalo in time for the game. He arrived at the ballpark about an hour before game time after running into delays in Chicago on the way back from the Triple-A All-Star Game in Portland, Oregon.

The Bisons skipper was a coach for the International League squad at the annual game.

“I’ll sleep good tonight,” Oberkfell mused. “They had the little gala afterwards, then we got a 4 a.m. bus to fly across the country. Then we we got the delay in Chicago and they weren’t telling us anything.

“I was on the cellphone telling (hitting coach Bill) Masse and (pitching coach) Ricky (Bones) that I might not make it. But I made it.”

………

The game marked the return for a pair of Bisons. Argenis Reyes played in his first game since being sent down by the parent New York Mets during the break. Evans made his first appearance at Coca-Cola Field since May, when he was sent to extended spring training and then Double-A Binghamton after starting his Triple-A career batting .093 (7-for-75).

Reyes led off and went 3-for-5 with two infield singles. Evans was 1-for-3 with a walk and scored the Bisons’ ninth inning run.

………

Two other roster moves were announced prior to the game. Infielder Michel Abreu was released, and was replaced on the active roster by pitcher Arturo Lopez.

Lopez had been on the temporary inactive list since July 11. He was claimed off waivers on June 22 from the San Diego Padres organization and has made three appearances with the Bisons.