Nashville Sounds survive late rally to beat Colorado Springs Sky Sox 9-7

Nashville Sounds Baseball

Pagnozzi Homers Twice, Velez Drives In Four For First-Place Nashville

Colorado Springs, CO – Catcher Matt Pagnozzi belted a pair of home runs and Eugenio Velez collected four RBIs to lead the Nashville Sounds to a 9-7 victory over the Colorado Springs Sky Sox on Friday evening at Security Service Field in the finale of a four-game series.

The Sounds (19-16) — who moved back into first place by a half-game over the Round Rock Express — plated seven unanswered runs at one point en route to the victory, which snapped the club’s four-game losing streak. Nashville’s nine runs marked a season high for the club.

Pagnozzi, who was activated from the disabled list earlier in the day, produced Nashville’s first multi-HR effort of the year during his 2-for-4 evening. Velez also went deep for the Sounds in the contest.

Colorado Springs took 3-0 lead against Sounds starter Ariel Pena in the bottom of the first inning.

Jason Pridie — who belted two home runs of his own in the game — put the home team on the board when he drilled a one-out solo shot, the outfielder’s fourth of the year. Later in the frame, the Sky Sox tacked on a pair of two-out runs when Kyle Parker (3-for-4) doubled and Ben Paulsen walked before both scored on Angelys Nina’s triple into the left field corner.

In the top of the second inning, Pagnozzi homered in his first at-bat since late April to cut the Nashville deficit to 3-1. The backstop smacked a two-out solo homer to right-center off Sky Sox starter Christian Friedrich.

The Sounds got another run back in the third when Pete Orr drew a one-out walk and later scored on Sean Halton’s RBI single up the middle, making it a 3-2 contest.

The Sky Sox extended their lead to 4-2 in the fourth when Nina legged out his second triple of the night then scored on a safety squeeze bunt laid down by Jackson Williams.

Nashville tied the contest at 4-4 with a pair of runs in the top of the fifth, chasing Friedrich from the game in the process.  Elian Herrera (2-for-4) singled and moved to second when Halton drew a walk before scoring on a single by Hunter Morris (3-for-5). After reliever Chad Bettis took over on the hill for Colorado Springs, Velez hit a run-scoring fielder’s choice to plate Halton and knot the game.

Velez, who tied the game in the fifth, gave Nashville its first lead of the night in the seventh when he slugged a three-run homer to right to greet new Sky Sox reliever Greg Burke. The two-out shot, which plated Halton and Morris to give the Sounds a 7-4 advantage, was Velez’s fourth roundtripper of the year.

After Hector Gomez singled off Burke to extend the inning, Pagnozzi continued his stellar night when he belted his second longball of the evening to stretch the lead to 9-4.

Pena (2-2) picked up a win for Nashville for the second straight start. The right-hander allowed four runs on eight hits over six innings of work, striking out five batters along the way.

Dustin Molleken took over in the ninth and surrendered a two-out, three-run homer to Pridie to allow Colorado Springs to draw within a pair at 9-7.

Closer Donovan Hand was summoned from the bullpen by Rick Sweet and retired Ryan Wheeler on a groundout to slam the door and earn his seventh save of the year.

Irving Falu went 1-for-4 with a pair of walks in the contest to extend the Sounds’ longest hitting streak of the year to 10 games. He has reached base safely in each of his last 20 games, hitting in 19 of them.

The Sounds continue their road trip on Saturday in Des Moines, Iowa, where they will play the 7:05pm opener of a four-game series against the Iowa Cubs at Principal Park. Right-hander Mike Fiers (5-1, 1.86) will toe the slab for Nashville to face I-Cubs left-hander Eric Jokisch (2-2, 3.65).

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