Pawtucket shrugs off a 10-3 drubbing the day before and notches a convincing win with the help of two homers from Mike Lockwood.

01:00 AM EDT on Monday, April 18, 2005

BY SHALISE MANZA YOUNG
Journal Sports Writer

PAWTUCKET -- Showing no signs of the troubles that plagued them on Saturday, the Pawtucket Red Sox toppled the Buffalo Bisons, 9-4, at soldout McCoy Stadium. Pawtucket celebrated the Boston Red Sox' World Series win yesterday, as the team's trophy was available for fans to view and get their photo taken.

Mike Lockwood led the way for the PawSox (4-7), clubbing two home runs into the Buffalo bullpen in right field and getting four RBI. It was quite a turnaround from Lockwood's 0-for-3 the day before. The Bison came away with a 10-3 win Saturday.

"It was alright, it was pretty good," Lockwood said jokingly about his day. "Today I felt like I saw the ball a little better. This being baseball, one day you feel good and the next day you feel bad, so I'm just hoping this stays around."

PawSox manager Ron Johnson, who managed Lockwood at double-A Portland last season, said he was happy to see the outfielder have a good outing.

"I have all the confidence in the world in him. He looked relaxed today, and obviously his bat speed was very good," he said.

Lockwood wasn't the only one seeing the ball well -- shortstop Luis Figueroa went 3-for-5 with two RBI and second baseman Alejandro Machado went 3-for-4 with two doubles and a triple to the corner in right.

Johnson said the recovery from Saturday's loss was a good-early season indicator of the team's character.

"After getting thumped yesterday pretty good by these guys, they were able to turn it around and turn the page on that. I really liked the ballclub mentality and makeup that, you know, yesterday was yesterday and [today] is a new day, as it will be tomorrow," Johnson said. "We'll turn the page on this one and see what we can do tomorrow."

Pawtucket is 4-2 since starting the season 0-5, and needs lots of contributions to get to .500, as Lockwood noted.

"It was a good day for a lot of guys -- Machado had three hits, Figueroa had three hits. We were in a little funk, but we're trying to get to .500 and it will take some good at-bats. We did that today," he said.

Things got off to a rocky start for Pawtucket and starter Chris Narveson; with two outs already recorded, Narveson hit Buffalo left fielder Mike Kinkade on the leg, and then walked the next two batters. A run scored when Narveson was charged with a balk.

Third baseman Shawn Wooten tied the game in the bottom of the first with an RBI single to score leadoff man Figueroa. Each team added another run in the second, including Lockwood's first home run, to lead off the home half. Lockwood gave Pawtucket the lead for good in the third, when his home run -- to almost the same spot as the first -- also plated catcher Kelly Shoppach, who drew a walk to start the inning.

The Sox got four runs in the fifth, thanks to a wild pitch, a single from Lockwood, a triple by Machado and a single by Figueroa.

Narveson came out of the game after striking out the first batter in the fourth; he was on a 60-pitch count because it had been so long since he had started a game. Scott Cassidy was credited with the win for 3 2/3 innings of work, giving up two hits and two runs.

"Cassidy was outstanding. He should be very pleased. The momentum of the game takes place in the middle innings, and we wanted to keep the momentum on our side," Johnson said.

Cassidy, who spent all of last year with Pawtucket, going 5-3 with a 3.46 E.R.A., gave up solo home runs to Bisons catcher Dusty Wathan to leadoff the fifth and third baseman Jake Gautreau in the sixth, but as Johnson noted, "You don't get beat on solo home runs."

Jason Kershner came on in the eighth for Pawtucket and threw two shutout innings.