Louisville Bats Notes: 4-26-19

Game 22, Home 12
Norfolk Tides (7-14) at Louisville Bats (8-13)
RHP Lucas Sims (1-0, 3.15) vs. LHP Josh Rogers (1-1, 6.00)
7:00 PM | Friday, April 26, 2019 | Louisville Slugger Field
LISTEN: Nick Curran, 790 KRD; iHeartRadio.com; iHeart app

RIDE THE TIDE: The Louisville Bats and Norfolk Tides begin a three-game weekend series on Friday night at Louisville Slugger Field. The Bats are currently on a season-long four-game losing streak, recently being swept at home by the Durham Bulls for the first time since 2007. Louisville will look to recuperate from falling to a season-high 5 games below .500 tonight against University of Louisville product Josh Rogers. Right-hander Lucas Sims (1-0, 3.15) will go for the Bats.
AGAINST NORFOLK: The Bats and Tides will face off 6 times in 2019, 3 at Louisville Slugger Field and 3 at Harbor Park in a little over a month (5/31-6/2). Last season, the clubs faced off 10 times, with LOU going 2-1 in their home ballpark, but just 1-6 on the road to finish 3-7 against the Triple-A affiliate of the Baltimore Orioles. The 6 scheduled meetings between the teams this year will be the fewest since meeting 6 times in 2016, and only the second time since 1998 they will meet fewer than 8 times.
20 HOME RUNS: Bats infielder Josh VanMeter went deep in the third inning on Thursday, his team-leading sixth home run of the season. The homer was Louisville's 20th as a team this season, taking just 21 games to reach that plateau. In 2018, Louisville did not hit its 20th homer as a team until the 31st game of the season on May 11, when Brandon Dixon homered against Toledo in a 2-1 win at Louisville Slugger Field.
WHO'LL STOP THE RAIN: Louisville lost 11-4 in Thursday night's finale against Durham after sitting out a season-long rain delay of 2 hours and 2 minutes. It marked the fifth rain delay at Louisville Slugger Field already this season, inching closer to the entire 2018 total of 7 home rain delays. Last night's 9:02 p.m. first pitch was the latest into the night that a game at LSF got started since August 22, 2014, when the Bats and Clippers sat through a 2:31 rain delay, finally getting underway at 9:36 p.m.
10 WALKS: Louisville pitching surrendered 10 walks on Thursday, the most walks they've given up in a game since July 27 last season (10 walks), in a 5-3 loss vs. Rochester. Bats pitching has allowed 90 walks this season, ranking second-most only to Toledo's 94. On the flipside, Louisville's 210 strikeouts as a staff also ranks second in the league, trailing only Rochester's 218.
U OF L: Louisville product Josh Rogers made 2 starts against the Bats last season when he was a member of the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders, dominating at Louisville Slugger Field, and then getting knocked around in his next start about a week later. Among U of L baseball products, Rogers has made 2 of the last 3 starts against the Bats.

LUCAS LUKAS SIMS: Tonight's starting pitcher, right-hander Lucas Sims, has struck out at least 10 batters in back-to-back outings, the first Bats pitcher to do that since Edinson Vólquez during the 2011 season. On Friday, he will try to become the first LOU pitcher with 3 straight outings of at least 10+ K's since at least the 2004 season.