Nashville, TN – Left-hander Dillon Overton threw 7 1/3 dominant innings to lead the Nashville Sounds to a 4-0 win over the Round Rock Express in front of 6,081 fans Monday night at First Tennessee Park.
The Sounds (42-28) took three games from the Express (38-32) in the five-game series and now lead the American Southern Division by four games at the midway point of the 2016 season.
The 7 1/3 innings set a career-high for Overton who improved to 8-4 on the season with the win. He has gone 25 1/3 innings without allowing an earned run. Over his last seven starts, he’s 7-0 with a miniscule 1.40 ERA covering 45 innings.
All four of the Nashville runs came in a big second inning. Renato Nunez and Matt Olson started the frame with back-to-back singles to put runners at first and second for Matt McBride who drew a walk.With the bases loaded and nobody out, Joey Wendle plated the first run of the game with a groundout.
Rangel Ravelo followed with a solid base hit up the middle to score Olson to make it 2-0. With McBride at second and Ravelo at first, Bruce Maxwell ripped a pitch from Chi Chi Gonzalez into the left-center gap that went all the way to the wall. Both runners scored to give the Sounds a 4-0 lead after two innings.
It was all Overton the rest of the way as the southpaw got into a groove. Starting when he retired Jared Hoying to end the first inning, Overton set down 14 straight Round Rock hitters.
With one out in the sixth, Overton walked Delino DeShields, then allowed a base hit to Hanser Alberto. He escaped the jam by getting Brett Nicholas to bounce into a 4-6-3 double play.
Overton struck out a pair in the sixth before allowing back-to-back hits to start the seventh. He came back to strike out James Jones for the first out of the inning. Manager Steve Scarsone turned to reliever Tucker Healy who got out of the jam with no harm.
Healy came back out for the ninth and worked around a two-out base hit from Jared Hoying to lock down his fourth save of the season.
Tyler Ladendorf had his second three-hit game of the season while six other Sounds collected hits.
The Sounds head to Des Moines for a four-game series with the Iowa Cubs set to begin Tuesday night. Right-hander Chris Jensen (0-1, 6.00) starts for Nashville against Jake Buchanan (5-4, 4.97) for Iowa in game one. First pitch is scheduled for 7:08pm.
The 2016 season is the Sounds’ 19th year in the Pacific Coast League and their second as the Oakland Athletics’ top affiliate. Tickets are available now by calling 615.690.4487 or by visiting www.nashvillesounds.com