Nashville, TN – The Nashville Sounds earned back-to-back wins to begin the series against the Louisville Bats on Wednesday night. Four different Nashville batters put together multi-hit efforts in the win including rehabbing Rhys Hoskins, who ended the night with a home run and double. His first inning home run was one of four home runs Nashville hit for the game as they slugged their way to victory. The two teams traded blows in the first two innings. The Bats jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first in part to a leadoff home run for Blake Dunn before adding another run off left-hander Tate Kuehner making his first start at First Horizon Park. Hoskins brought the Sounds within a run thanks to his first hit in his second game with Nashville on a towering solo blast to left-center field. Louisville pushed the lead back to two after capitalizing on a two-out triple in the top of the second.
Raynel Delgado homered in his first at-bat Wednesday after hitting for the cycle on Tuesday night. His solo shot in the bottom of the second once again brought Nashville within a run. Kuehner settled in, spinning scoreless innings in the third and fourth, working around a leadoff walk in the fourth inning.
Nashville took the lead with a four-run bottom of the fourth, highlighted by the first Triple-A home run for Ethan Murray and back-to-back doubles for Freddy Zamora and Drew Avans to make it a 6-3 advantage for Nashville. Kuehner was back to the mound for the fifth and faced three batters.
His final was against Reds’ top prospect, Sal Stewart, who made it a one-run game with his seventh homer since joining Louisville in mid-July. Blake Holub struck out the first batter he faced and worked a ground out to erase putting the potential tying run aboard with a two-out walk.
After a quiet sixth and seventh innings offensively for Nashville, Jake Bauers connected on his third home run of his rehab assignment and provided the Sounds a two-run cushion to work with at 7-5. Brian Fitzpatrick worked two perfect innings on the mound before turning the ball over to Craig Yoho in the top of the ninth to protect the two-run advantage.
The Brewers no. 16-rated prospect pitched a ground out before striking out Trey Faltine. He got Dunn to fly out to left and earned his seventh save of his season with Nashville and a 2-0 series lead against the Bats.
RHP Garrett Stallings (3-2, 3.50 ERA) will get the start for Nashville on Thursday night. First pitch from First Horizon Park is scheduled for 6:35pm.
