Louisville Bats Notes: May 27

BATS TAKE GAME TWO: The Louisville Bats, or rather the Louisville "Mashers" with Saturday's rebranding, defeated the Durham Bulls last night by a 5-3 score, the first time LOU had defeated DUR in 5 tries this season. This marks the longest homestand played at Louisville Slugger Field since a 10-game run from April 14-23, 2016 against Toledo (4/14-4/17), Columbus (4/18-4/20) and Indianapolis (4/21-4/23).

AGAINST DURHAM: Louisville and Durham meet for the 90th time all-time tonight and the second of three series this season and the first of two to be played at Louisville Slugger Field. The two clubs will meet 10+ times in the regular season for the first time since 2007, when the Bats went 4-8 against the Bulls. The clubs met 13 times during the 2010 season, 8 times in the regular season and 5 in the IL playoffs, with Durham taking two of three from Louisville in its last postseason appearance.
BATS WIN, JUSTIN THE NIC OF TIME: Louisville won yesterday by a 5-3 score off arguably its best starting pitching performance of the season by left-hander Justin Nicolino . His outing (8.2ip, 8h, 3er, 0bb, 4k, hbp, 107pit/80str) easily surpassed the longest start (7.0ip) by a LOU hurler this season, which had been achieved on 3 occasions this season, most recently by Robert Stephenson at Norfolk on May 6. Nicolino carried a shutout into the ninth inning, and came within one out of the Bats' first 9-inning complete game shutout since 2015. He loaded the bases before being removed from the game with Kevin Quackenbush taking over, notching his fifth save in his fifth opportunity to give LOU the win despite allowing 3 runs in the last frame.
LONGEST OUTING SINCE: Nicolino narrowly missed tossing the team's first 9-inning complete game shutout since Michael Lorenzen on August 16, 2015 vs. the Norfolk Tides. Nicolino's 25 outs recorded made for the longest outing by a Bats pitcher since RHP Daniel Wright tossed a 9-inning complete game against the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders on May 16, 2016 at Louisville Slugger Field.
WALK-FREE ZONE: Louisville pitching has combined to walk just one batter in its last 3 games, spanning 26.0 innings. Between Thursday, Friday and Saturday, Zach Neal, Rafael De Paula, Domingo Tapia, Anthony DeSclafani, Kyle Crockett, Evan Mitchell, Kevin Quackenbush and Justin Nicolino have combined to walk just one batter (DeSclafani walked Durham's Jeremy Hazelbaker on Friday), while striking out 35.
STRENGTH OF SCHEDULE: Through 45 games played this season, the Bats have played in 30 games against teams with records above .500, accounting for exactly 75% of their games. Louisville improved to 10-20 in games versus above-.500 clubs on the season.
TWO-RUN TURNAROUND: The Bats improved to 3-7 in games decided by exactly two runs this season on the heels of last night's 5-3 win. While Louisville still owns the lowest winning percentage in two-run games, two of its last three wins have come by exactly 2 runs.
LEAN ON US: Saturday night's win marked the first Bats win in a start made by someone other than Robert Stephenson since May 9 vs. Indianapolis, when Justin Nicolino started en route to a 4-3 win over the Indians. The last time LOU won a game that was started by someone other than Stephenson/Nicolino was May 7 vs. IND, when Zach Neal started and earned the victory in a 3-1 Bats win.