Petty, Johnson Guide Bats to Win in Opener
May 6, 2025 - International League (IL)
Louisville Bats News Release
LOUISVILLE, Kentucky - Chase Petty's six no-hit innings set the tone for the Louisville Bats in their 9-1 beatdown of the Omaha Storm Chasers in the series opener. It was everything Petty could have asked for in his return to the Bats after struggling in his MLB debut last Wednesday.
Petty (W, 2-1) cruised through his first two innings of work but ran into some trouble in the third, walking the bottom two hitters in the Omaha order to lead off the inning. After a flyout to center moved both runners into scoring position, P.J. Higgins made a strong throw off a grounder to third to cut down Joey Wiemer at the plate, keeping the game scoreless. Petty proceeded to strike out the next batter he faced for the third out, escaping unscathed.
Louisville applied some pressure to Omaha southpaw Noah Cameron (L, 1-2) in the fourth, as Rece Hinds followed a Will Benson leadoff walk with a double to center, putting runners on second and third with nobody out. Edwin Rios then poked one into shallow left center to put the Bats up 1-0, and Francisco Urbaez doubled the Louisville lead with a sacrifice fly.
Petty recorded his fifth and sixth strikeouts of the game in a strong fifth inning and added two more punchouts in the sixth. Hinds led off the bottom of the sixth with a home run off the top of the left-center field wall to make it 3-0 Bats, knocking the Omaha starter Cameron out of the game. Urbaez drew a walk off of new Storm Chasers pitcher Junior Fernandez, and after advancing to second on a wild pitch, he came around to score on a Higgins single up the middle, making it 4-0 Louisville.
Joe La Sorsa entered in relief of Petty in the seventh, as the 22-year-old Bats starter exited after six no-hit innings with eight strikeouts. La Sorsa surrendered Omaha's first hit of the game with two outs, a bloop single to left-center by Harold Castro, but followed it by catching Tyler Tolbert looking for the third out.
The Bats turned it over to Lenny Torres Jr. for the eighth, who quickly recorded the first two outs before John Rave sent a ball over the left field wall, ending the shutout bid and cutting the Louisville lead to 4-1.
Looking to add to their advantage, the Bats loaded the bases on three-straight one-out hits in the bottom of the eighth. Eric Yang took a hard sinker off the elbow pad to bring home a run, and Ivan Johnson snapped an 0-13 skid with an opposite field grand slam to blow the game wide open, 9-1. It was the first Bats grand slam since Jason Vosler cracked one against St. Paul on September 6, 2023.
Alexis Diaz came on for the ninth, looking to close out the Storm Chasers. He did just that, posting a zero and securing a series-opening victory over Omaha.
Three Bats logged multi-hit efforts in the ballgame, including Higgins' second straight three-hit game. Hinds homered for the third game in a row, and Johnson's grand slam was the first bases-loaded bomb of the season for Louisville.
The Bats (17-16) will continue their series with the Storm Chasers (13-19) with game two on Wednesday morning. First pitch is set for 11:05 a.m. ET with Nick Curran and Jim Kelch on the call for Talk Radio 1080.
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