Louisville Bats Notes: 5-1-19

Game 27, Away 13
Louisville Bats (10-16) at Toledo Mud Hens (9-15)
RHP Lucas Sims (1-0, 5.48) vs. LHP Tyler Alexander (0-2, 8.64)
10:35 AM | Wednesday, May 1, 2019 | Fifth Third Field
LISTEN: Nick Curran, 790 KRD; iHeartRadio.com; iHeart app

MY BABY TAKES THE MORNING TRAIN: The Bats and Mud Hens finish up a three-game series with a Wednesday morning rubber match. It is the third of six scheduled morning games for the Bats in 2019, going 1-1 thus far in pre-noon first pitches. With each of the Bats' first 2 series victories (at Columbus, at Indianapolis) coming on the road, Louisville will look to win its third road series in four tries to begin 2019, with right-hander Lucas Sims on the mound.
AGAINST TOLEDO: Louisville has a chance to win its third series of the season today and its first against Toledo since July 30-August 1 last season, taking 2 of 3 from the Mud Hens in the clubs' final meeting at Fifth Third Field in 2018. While the clubs finish up the second series at Toledo in the season's opening month, it's the first time that the clubs do not meet in Louisville during April since 2000, when the RiverBats hosted the Mud Hens for the first time that year from May 1-3.
WHAT A MONTH: Bats infielder Josh VanMeter finishes the opening month of the season with a .358 batting average (34-for-95), leading the International league in games played (26), hits (34), runs (24) home runs (11), RBI (28), total bases (24), slugging percentage (.758) and ranks highly among several other offensive categories going into May. His 11 homers are tied for the most in a calendar month in Bats history with Juan Francisco, who hit 11 in July 2010.
LEAVING THE YARD: The Bats hit a team-record 31 home runs in the month of April. The 31 homers are the most in a calendar month for a Bats team since July 2012, when they also clubbed 31 homers as a team.

127 POWERS: Louisville scored 127 runs as an offense during the season's opening month, ninth-most in the IL. The Bats have been remarkably consistent in terms of their monthly run outputs over the last 4 full months of baseball, scoring 138, 125, 125 and 127 runs in June, July, August of 2018 and April of 2019, respectively.
STREAKZEL: Center fielder Nick Senzel has hit safely in each of his 7 games with Louisville this season, and has an 18-game hitting streak with the Bats that goes back to last season. During the life of the streak, Senzel is batting .383 (31-for-81) with 16 runs, 6 doubles, 4 home runs and 14 RBI, with a .412 on-base percentage.
LUCKY NUMBER 13: The Bats made it through the entire month of April making only 16 transactions, with none of the moves involving the pitching staff. In fact, each of the 13 pitchers that Louisville started with on their Opening Day roster back on April 4 are still on Louisville's active roster as of April 30. Last April, the Bats made 36 transactions, with 20 of them involving pitchers.
THAT'S THE TRUTH: The International League has seen a surge in home run rate to begin the 2019 season, with a total of 394 home runs hit in the league through 334 April games, coming out to 1.18 home runs/game. During the 2018 season, there were a total of 1,555 home runs in 1,948 games, coming out to 0.80 home runs/game. There has been an approximate 47.5% rise in home run rate between 2018 full season homers/game and 2019 April homers/game.
INFLEXIBLE: The Bats haven't been fans of the seventh inning this season, being outscored in the frame 21-3 through the first month of the season. The seventh has been the most lopsided inning for the Bats this year by far, with the next-closest coming in the first inning, being outscored 23-13.