Nashville, TN – The Nashville Sounds dropped their second straight game to the Indianapolis Indians with a 3-2 extra-innings loss on Thursday night. After falling behind in the first, Nashville scored a pair of runs in the seventh before being held scoreless over the final three innings. The Sounds stranded 12 runners on base in the one-run loss (3-for-14 w/ RISP) and fall to 2-7 in extras this season.
Thomas Pannone allowed hits to each of the first three Indianapolis batters to start his night. A leadoff triple followed by a RBI double gave the Indians their first run of the night with a RBI single giving Indianapolis a 2-0 lead after one. It would stay that way until the bottom of the seventh. Pannone ended his start after three innings, allowing just three hits and two runs while recording three strikeouts.
Right-hander Garrett Stallings piggy-backed Pannone and also worked three innings, surrendering just one hit with five strikeouts.
Rehabbing Joel Kuhnel tossed a scoreless top of the seventh with a hit allowed while facing five batters. Nashville’s offense finally got going in the bottom of the seventh. Ethan Murray reached on one of three Indianapolis errors to start the inning and the Sounds played small ball from there. Consecutive bunt singles for Jacob Hurtubise and Eduardo Garcia loaded the bases with no outs. Brock Wilken delivered with a one-out, two-RBI single to even the score at 2-2.
Carlos Rodriguez pitched a 1-2-3 top of the eighth and worked around double to strand a runner in scoring position in the ninth. Garcia became the third Nashville batter with a multi-hit performance on a leadoff single in the bottom of the ninth, but a fielder’s choice and double play sent the game to extras.
Blake Holub pitched the top of the 10th for Nashville. A productive ground out moved the placed runner to third ahead Joshua Palacios who chopped a ball over the outstretched glove of Blake Burke for a RBI double to give the Indians a 3-2 lead. Holub responded with back-to-back strikeouts to keep it a one-run game for Nashville to try and answer in the bottom half of the inning.
With Wilken starting at second base, Burke drew a walk to reach base for a second time and sent Tuesday’s walk-off hero Akil Baddoo to the plate with the go-ahead run on base. Baddoo laced a ball into straightaway center and over the head of Mitch Jebb. It was a long single for Baddoo off the base of the center field wall with Wilken and Burke advancing 90-feet to load the bases with no outs.
Nashville squandered the scoring chance with a pair of infield fly pop outs and a strikeout for Michael Darrell-Hicks to earn his first win of the season for Indianapolis after pitching a scoreless ninth and 10th inning.
Wilken (2-for-5, 2 RBI), Darrien Miller (2-for-4, 2B), and Garcia (2-for-3, BB) finished with multi-hit games for the Sounds. Stallings (3.0 IP, H, 5 K), Kuhnel (1.0 IP), Rodriguez (2.0 IP) and Holub (L, 1.0 IP, 2 K) combined to toss seven innings without an earned run allowed in the loss.
