Louisville Bats Notes: June 15

FRIDAY NIGHT OPENER: The Louisville Bats and Toledo Mud Hens open a three-game weekend series at Fifth Third Field, the fourth series between the International League West clubs and second at Toledo's home ballpark. The Bats are coming off a home series loss to Columbus, dropping three of four games with their lone win coming on Wednesday in a 7-1 game. Louisville owns a 7-12 record in series openers this season, and 3-5 on the road.

AGAINST TOLEDO: Louisville and Toledo will play for the 10th time tonight, with the Mud Hens going 6-3 thus far. The Hens have outscored the Bats 48-34 and outhomered LOU 15-3. Six of those 15 home runs came in a single game on May 13 (the last time these teams played), a Louisville Slugger Field record for most home runs in a game hit by a team. Today's starter José López was Louisville's starter in that game.
THREE IN THE TOP EIGHT: The trio of Dilson Herrera, Gabriel Guerrero and Nick Senzel have been excellent at the plate for Louisville in the month of June. Last night, Senzel recorded his fifth multi-hit game in a row and his sixth of the month, while Herrera went 1-for-3 with a double and run scored. In the month of June, LOU has 3 of the top 8 batters in the month by batting average: Herrera (.419, T-1st), Senzel (.396, 5th) and Guerrero (.362, 8th).
SENZATIONAL IN THE LEADOFF SPOT: Infielder Nick Senzel is making a case for "greatest leadoff-hitter of all time" with his fifth straight multi-hit game from the top spot in the batting order. In his first 5 career games batting leadoff, Senzel is now batting .522 (12-for-23) with 3 runs, 3 doubles, 5 RBI and a stolen base. While his batting average coming into play Friday sits at .299, he leaped above the .300 mark last night for the first time since April 8.
STARTER K's IN LAST 3: Despite Thursday night's starter Justin Nicolino only striking out 2 Columbus Clippers, LOU starting pitchers have struck out more batters over the past 3 games than they did during any 3-game span last season. With Cody Reed striking out 11 (a season-high for LOU) and Robert Stephenson striking out 9 combined with Nicolino's 2 yesterday, LOU starters' 22 strikeouts in a 3-game span surpass last year's high of 21 strikeouts, done twice: June 18-20 (Stephens, 6 at NOR; Bailey, 6 vs. COL; Reed 9 vs. COL) and September 1-3 (Stephens, 9 at IND; Reed, 2 at IND g1 DH; Garrett, 10 at IND g2 DH).
DON'T RUN ON TROMP: Catcher Chadwick Tromp has put together an excellent 2018 campaign for Louisville, batting .281 (16-for-57) with a multi-hit game Thursday night. Behind the plate, he's been among the toughest catchers to run on in the IL, throwing out 45% of would-be base stealers, throwing out 9 of 20 runners, including Todd Hankins last night. Tromp ranks third among IL catchers in caught stealing %, with Lehigh Valley's Logan Moore (56 CS%, 14-for-25) and Columbus' Eric Haase (45%, 14-for-31) ranking ahead of Tromp.
DEFERRED THIRD: Columbus scored 3 runs in the top of the third inning in Thursday's 8-2 game, the toughest inning this season for Louisville. The Bats have been outscored in the third inning 42-19, with their -23 run differential in the inning ranking lowest. The second-worst inning by run differential has been the sixth inning, getting outscored 44-25 (-19 run differential).