Nashville Sounds come up short at Memphis Redbirds, 5-4

Nashville Sounds Belt Three Homers, Led By Jason Pridie’s Team-Leading 12th

Memphis, TN – Despite belting three home runs, the Nashville Sounds came up on the short end of a 5-4 defeat at the hands of the Memphis Redbirds on Saturday evening at AutoZone Park.

With its win, Memphis evened the series at two games apiece and knotted the season series between the clubs at 5-5 as the cross-state rivals duke it out for possession of the Tennessee Lottery I-40 Cup.

The defeat was Nashville’s 16th one-run loss of the year, 2nd-most in the Pacific Coast League.

The Redbirds grabbed an early 3-0 lead against Nashville starter Brad Mills, who labored through a 32-pitch first inning. Greg Garcia, Cody Stanley, and Dean Anna each produced RBI knocks for Memphis. Sounds center fielder Craig Gentry made a spectacular diving catch of an Ed Easley line drive to right-center during the frame to rob an extra-base hit and prevent even further damage.

Nashville used the longball to get a couple runs back against Memphis starter Tyler Waldron in the top of the second. Third baseman Max Muncy put the Sounds on the board with a one-out solo homer to right, his third big fly of the year, before Anthony Aliotti mashed his first roundtripper of the season, an opposite-field, two-out shot to left that reduced the deficit to 3-2.

Memphis right fielder Jeremy Hazelbaker protected the slim Memphis lead by running down a Gentry line drive deep in the right-center gap and making a diving catch to steal an extra-base knock from the Nashville outfielder and end the inning.

The Redbirds upped their lead to 4-2 in the bottom of the second when cleanup hitter Stephen Piscotty delivered a two-out RBI single to left off Mills to bring in Rafael Ortega.

All-Star Jason Pridie leveled the contest with one swing of the bat for the Sounds in the top of the third, smashing a two-run homer to right to chase Waldron. The blast, which also plated Ryan Roberts (walk), was Pridie’s team-leading 12th homer of the season.

With the three home runs on the night, Nashville upped its July total to 13, already the club’s best monthly total of the season with 17 games left to play before the start of August.

Mills worked a season-low two innings for Nashville, giving up four runs on six hits while throwing 57 pitches during his no-decision.

Anna (2-for-4) pushed Memphis back in front, 5-4, with a one-out solo homer to right off Arnold Leon in the bottom of the third inning. Neither team would score for the remainder of the evening.

Reliever Chris Thomas (1-0) hurled four hitless innings behind Waldron to pick up his first career Triple-A victory for Memphis.

Nashville (41-49) missed a golden opportunity to even the tilt in the top of the eighth. After placing runners on first and second with no outs against Marcus Hatley, Gentry attempted to advance to third on a Roberts flyout to shallow left-center but was thrown out by Ortega on the play. Dayan Viciedo, who went 0-for-4 to snap his season-best hit streak at eight games, later grounded out to end the frame as Hatley escaped the jam unscathed.

In the top of the ninth, Aliotti singled off Hatley with two outs to put the potential tying run on base, but Dean Kiekhefer took over on the Memphis hill and struck out Bryan Anderson to preserve the victory and notch his first save of the year.

The cross-state rivals wrap up the five-game set with a 1:35pm rubber match on Sunday afternoon. Right-hander Nate Long (1-1, 3.00), who has authored quality starts in each of his two outings since rejoining the Sounds at the start of July, will man the bump for Nashville to take on Memphis southpaw Tyler Lyons (5-4, 3.10).

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