LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The Louisville Bats (25-39) were defeated by the Pawtucket Red Sox (27-36) by a 3-2 score at Louisville Slugger Field. Aristides Aquino went 2-for-4 with two singles to extend his hit streak to 15 games, one shy of Hernan Iribarren's 16-game hit streak in 2016, the longest
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The Louisville Bats (25-39) were defeated by the Pawtucket Red Sox (27-36) by a 3-2 score at Louisville Slugger Field. Aristides Aquino went 2-for-4 with two singles to extend his hit streak to 15 games, one shy of Hernan Iribarren's 16-game hit streak in 2016, the longest in a season over the last four years.
Both teams went scoreless in the first with Pawtucket striking first in the second inning. Josh Ockimey started the inning off with a double to right-center then Rusney Castillo singled to left field to score Ockimey.
In the third inning, the Bats got their first runs of the game across the board. Alberti Chavez and Alex Blandino started the inning with back to back singles, then a double later in the inning from Phillip Ervin scored them both to put the Bats up 2-1. Blandino went 2-for-3 with a walk with the night and Ervin went 2-for-4 with two RBIs.
The Red Sox tied the game at 2-2 in the fifth when Gorkys Hernández and Tzu-Wei Lin hit back to back doubles. Jesús Reyes came in to pitch for the Bats with the bases loaded and no outs in the sixth inning Louisville pulled off the 5-2-3 double play and then Rob Refsnyder caught a fly ball to end the inning without allowing the PawSox to get a run across.
Neither team got a run across the board again until the eighth inning when Juan Centeno and Cole Sturgeon hit back to back doubles to put Pawtucket up 3-2. In the bottom of the ninth, three straight singles from Juan Graterol, Narciso Crook, and Blandino loaded the bases but Louisville couldn't pull off the win.
Robert Stephenson and R.J. Alaniz both tossed an inning with the Major League rehabber Stephenson giving up a hit, a walk, and striking out two, and Alaniz striking out one. The win went to Trevor Kelley (5-2, 1.14) who walked one in his 1.2 innings pitched. Domingo Tapia got his first save of the season in his 2.0 innings pitched giving up three hits and striking out four. Sal Romano (2-5, 5.03) got the loss, giving up two hits, a run, and striking out one in his inning pitched.
Louisville stays at home for game two of the three-game series against the Pawtucket Red Sox. First pitch is set for Wednesday at 12:00 p.m. at Louisville Slugger Field. It's a righty-righty matchup with Vladimir Gutierrez (2-5, 7.32) set to pitch for the Bats and Ryan Weber (1-1, 5.04) set to pitch for the PawSox.
