Nashville, TN – The Nashville Sounds and Oklahoma City Dodgers will play a deciding game five in the American Conference Finals after the Dodgers used a 7-1 win over the Sounds Saturday night to extend the series.
Dodgers’ starter and former Sound Alfredo Figaro went seven innings and limited Nashville to one run over five hits.
Figaro got plenty of offense and it started early for Oklahoma City. Back-to-back walks issued to Micah Johnson and Cody Bellinger started the game. After Nashville starter Donn Roach came back to get the next two batters, Chris Taylor hit a bouncer to third that Matt Chapman mishandled allowing Johnson to score.
Both starters settled in and the score stayed 1-1 until the fifth when Corey Brown launched a solo homer to deep right field to give the Dodgers a 2-1 lead.
Roach departed after five innings in favor of reliever Aaron Kurcz. Will Venable worked a walk to start the inning and quickly came around to score when Will Farmer followed with a double.
Oklahoma City wasn’t done as Jack Murphy followed Farmer with a towering two-run blast to the right field seats to extend the lead to 5-1.
Nashville’s offense didn’t get much going the rest of the night. They finished with six hits and went 0-for-4 with runners in scoring position.
The Dodgers launched three homers to back Figaro who earned the win. Roach was tagged with the loss in his Sounds debut.
The last time the Sounds played in a deciding fifth game was in 2006 against Round Rock. In that series, Nashville won game four to force game five, but lost to the Express in the do-or-die game.
The deciding fifth game of the series is set for Sunday night at First Tennessee Park. Right-hander Chris Jensen (2-6, 4.53) starts for the Sounds while the Dodgers have not announced a starter. First pitch is scheduled for 6:35pm.
Tickets for the 2016 Pacific Coast League Playoffs at First Tennessee Park are available for purchase at the Nashville Sounds box office and online at www.nashvillesounds.com
The 2016 season is the Sounds’ 19th year in the Pacific Coast League and their second as the Oakland Athletics’ top affiliate.
