Huff leads Clippers in 2-0 victory over Bats
Huff (7-6, 4.94) pitched 7.2 innings, scattering seven hits and a walk while striking out five. The Bats (51-89), who dropped two games at home against the Clippers (72-68) on Tuesday and Wednesday, scored just two runs over the last 27 innings.
In his final outing of the year, Reineke (5-11, 4.57) pitched well enough to keep Louisville in the contest. He finished with 7.2 innings, surrendering nine hits and both runs.
The Clippers threatened early, but Reineke and the Louisville defense held serve through the first four frames.
With one out in the first, Gregorio Petit singled up the middle. Cord Phelps then hit a sharp grounder to second base, where the ball glanced off a diving Chris Valaika's glove to put runners on the corners. An out later, Jared Goedert hit a grounder to shortstop that nearly found a hole. Instead, Didi Gregorius backhanded it, fell to the ground and spun to throw him out at first base.
It didn't take long for the Clippers to put more pressure on the Bats. In the second, Juan Diaz hit a leadoff single and Luke Carlin followed an out later with a hit. Again Columbus found itself with two on and one out, but again Louisville was able to retire the next two batters to end the inning.
In the fifth inning, Columbus finally broke through. Tim Fedroff doubled off the wall in left field to begin the bottom of the frame, and moved to third on a Petit ground out. Phelps then singled to center to score Fedroff and put the Clippers on the board. Vinny Rottino grounded out, moving Phelps up to second, and Goedert hit a line drive to right field, bringing Phelps across to give the Clippers a 2-0 lead.
That was all that Huff and the Columbus reliever Frank Herrmann needed. Herrmann went the final 1.1 innings to seal the narrow victory.
Game two of the three-game set in Columbus is at 7:05 on Friday at Huntington Park in Columbus, Ohio.