Balanced Attack Leads Bats To 9-5 Win

The Louisville Bats got back to .500 and extended their winning streak to a season-long three games with a 9-5 win over the Nashville Sounds on Thursday night at Louisville Slugger Field.

Carson Spiers recorded the longest start of the season for a Bat, going seven innings with six strikeouts and allowing just three runs. On offense, every Bat managed to reach base, with Blake Dunn reaching four total times on a home run, two walks, and a single while driving in two and scoring three runs, and Erik González recorded his first three-hit game as a Bat to help lead the attack.

After getting Tyler Black to pop out to begin the game, Spiers found himself in some early trouble after he hit Christian Arroyo and allowed a single to Andruw Monasterio. He worked quickly to strike out Isaac Collins in three pitches but threw a wild pitch in his battle against Eric Haase to allow the runners to move to second and third. Haase then singled to drive in both runners and give the Sounds an early 2-0 advantage.

The Bats were ready to respond, as Dunn hit a leadoff single and Livan Soto worked a walk to put Dunn in scoring position for Rece Hinds. Sounds starter Aaron Ashby threw a wild pitch of his own to allow the runners to move up to second and third, followed by a Hinds RBI groundout to cut the Bats deficit to 2-1.

Spiers kept the Sounds quiet in the second, and the Bats were hungry for more at the plate. Hernán Pérez led off with a walk, González singled to left field, and Dunn worked a walk to load the bases with no outs. Soto then scored Pérez from third on a sacrifice fly, and Hinds was up in a big spot once again. He came through, hitting a line drive with an exit velocity of 112.2 miles per hour that went all the way to the wall in right-center field, scoring both González and Dunn and registering his first triple of the year to earn a 4-2 lead for Louisville.

Spiers (W, 1-0) continued to settle in, blanking the Sounds again in the third, and Ashby (L, 0-2) finally began to do the same with his own quiet frame in the bottom half. Spiers found himself with traffic in the fourth, as Collins led off with a single and Haase followed with a double, but the Bats starter impressively worked out of the jam by getting Noah Campbell to strike out and the next two Sounds to fly out.

The Bats just wouldn’t stop hitting, as González registered his second hit on a double to lead off their half of the fourth. Dunn came up next, already having been on base twice, and took an Ashby sinker deep to left field for the first homer of his Triple-A career to extend the Bats lead to 6-2. Kevin Herget relieved Ashby after Soto reached on a throwing error by Black at first, and he managed to keep the Louisville offense at bay the rest of the frame.

Spiers kept rolling, putting two more zeros up in the fifth and sixth, and Herget kept the Bats lead at 6-2 by posting two scoreless innings of his own. Spiers came back out for the seventh and quickly found himself in a tough spot as runners were on first and third without an out recorded. The Bats starter went into damage control mode, forcing Patrick Dorrian to pop out before Chavez Young grounded out to score the runner from third. Spiers ended the threat by striking out Black, finalizing a quality start for the right hander.

The Bats had three more cross the plate in the seventh against Sounds reliever Harold Chirino, as back-to-back doubles from Michael Trautwein and Conner Capel scored one and González drove in two to give the Bats plenty of breathing room at 9-3.

Yosver Zulueta appeared in relief to begin the eighth. The Sounds managed to score two runs on a single by Yonny Hernández, but that was as close as they’d come. Brooks Kriske (S, 1) came on to record the final out of the inning with the bases loaded and finished the Sounds off in the ninth to tally his first save of the season in the 9-5 Bats win.

The Bats (12-12) continue to play host to the Sounds (11-13) on Friday night in the fourth of their six-game series, with first pitch scheduled for 7:15 p.m. at Louisville Slugger Field. Nick Curran and Jim Kelch will be on the call for 1450/96.1 WXVW.