Bats win fifth straight
Published on May 14, 2008 under International League (IL1)
Louisville Bats News Release
Louisville, KY - An eight-run second inning and a solid pitching performance by Justin Lehr helped propel the Louisville Bats to their season-high fifth consecutive win on Wednesday afternoon, smashing the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees by the score of 11-6.
After Justin Christian led off the game with a home run to give the Yankees a 1-0 lead, Louisville rallied to score 10 unanswered runs over the next two innings.
In the bottom of the first, the Bats took the lead after they loaded the bases with no outs, and scored two runs off of sacrifice flies. Andy Phillips drove in Andy Green to tie the game, followed by Jolbert Cabrera scoring Luis Bolivar, who was starting at shortstop in place of recently called up Paul Janish. Both runs were unearned, as Bolivar had reached on a throwing error by Scranton/Wilkes-Barre starting pitcher Heath Phillips.
Louisville came into the game leading the league in batting average and put together a monsterous second inning when they sent 13 batters to the plate. They had their first nine men reach base without an out being recorded. The rally started when Chris Dickerson singled and Alvin Colina smacked a double into the left-field corner to put runners on second and third. After a Drew Anderson RBI in which he reached base on error, Green lined a single to left to make the score 4-1 and open the floodgates. After a Bolivar RBI double made it 5-1, Jay Bruce belted a two-run triple to center field that nearly left the yard. Bruce now has five triples on the season, which is tied for second in the league. Louisville also leads the league as a team with 22 triples thus far in the 2008 campaign.
After Bruce's triple in the second with no outs, Yankee pitcher Heath Phillips was lifted. The Bats offensive onslaught continued as Andy Phillips pushed his league-high hitting streak to 17 games with an RBI double to center, making it an 8-1 game. During his hit streak, Phillips has hit a torrid .373 with 17 RBIs. Colina later scored Phillips on a sacrifice fly, giving him 14 RBIs for the season, eight of which have came against the Yankees. Anderson added his second RBI of the inning to make it 10-1 before the rally finally came to an end.
The Bats added an insurance run in the seventh when Bruce belted his team-leading eighth home run, a solo shot. Bruce finished the day 3-3 and was only a single short of the cycle. The best prospect in all of baseball continues to lead the league with 53 hits and a .366 batting average. He is also tied for second with 33 runs batted in.
The Yankees added five runs in the eighth inning to close the gap, including a two-run homer by Cody Ransom.
Lehr (4-2, 2.41) earned the win for the Bats, pitching six innings, giving up only three hits and one earned run, walking three and fanning two. Phillips (2-1, 6.00) got the loss after pitching only one inning for Scranton. He gave up eight runs, although only five were earned and only faced 12 batters before being lifted.
Tomorrow will be the third of a four-game series between the teams, with the Bats putting RHP Homer Bailey (4-3, 3.55) on the mound against RHP Dan Giese (2-2, 1.13).
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