Clippers Wrap up Rain-Shortened Series with 4-1 Loss to Bats
The Clippers struck first making it a 1-0 lead in the fourth, but watched the Louisville Bats win in grand fashion and earn a split in the first two games of the series. With Monday's game rained out and no make-up announced game six of the season drops Columbus to 1-5 as the Bats improve to 3-2.
The start of the season has not gone Columbus' way as the Clippers sit in dead last in the International League West after series against Indianapolis and Louisville. The starter in Wednesday's getaway game for the Clippers was T.J. House, who started strong. Only allowing one hit and facing the minimum through four innings, House was rolling early. After giving up a pair of hits in the fifth and one in the sixth, the wheels fell off in the seventh as House hit Bats DH Thomas Neal, a Ruben Gotay single and walk by Max Ramirez loaded the bases. After loading the bases with no outs House was pulled, but the next man up was Chris Nelson who hit a grand slam off of Scott Barnes to give Louisville the 4-1 edge they would not relinquish. The winning pitcher was Bats starter Jeff Francis who improves to 2-0 after going six innings and only allowing one run on six hits while striking out six. Jumbo Diaz got a five-out save with House receiving the loss.
Columbus was unable to muster much offense with only one run coming in. The Clippers outhit the Bats 7-6, but lost while outhitting an opponent for the fourth time in 2014. The lone run for Columbus came on an RBI single by Bryan LaHair in the fourth, scoring Carlos Moncrief who reached on a double. The hit was the first of the season for LaHair and was also his first RBI. The Clippers had their share of chances stranding three base runners in scoring position throughout the game.
The Clippers will immediately get another shot at the Bats as the series shifts to Louisville for three games for the first road trip of the season. Game one of the three-game set in Louisville will begin at 6:35 p.m. with righty Josh Tomlin (0-1, 6.00 ERA) as the probable starter for the Clippers and righty Chien-Ming Wang (0-1, 7.20 ERA) as the probable for the Bats.