Louisville Bats Notes: 4-4-19

IT'S A BEAUTIFUL DAY FOR A BALLGAME: The Louisville Bats and Toledo Mud Hens are set to square off in the first game of the 2019 season. The International League West clubs opened the season against each other last year, with the Hens winning 6-4 on April 6 at Louisville Slugger Field. The Bats last opened a season at Toledo in 2016, with the Hens winning 10-2 before the remaining 3 games in the series were postponed due to inclement weather.

AGAINST TOLEDO: The Bats and Hens are scheduled to meet 24 times this season. In 2018, the clubs met 25 times, with the Hens taking a 14-11 advantage. The Bats went just 4-8 at Louisville Slugger Field against their IL West Division rivals, while going 7-6 against the Hens at Fifth Third Field. Louisville batters hit .267 compared to Toledo's .254 average in the 25 matchups, but the Hens were more productive with their hits, outscoring the Bats 111 to 103 and outhomering them 30 to 17.
OPENING NIGHT: The Bats look to snap a 4-game losing streak on Opening Day, tied for the longest Opening Day losing streak in franchise history with the 1984-87 Redbirds. Since 2015, the Bats have been outscored 32-8 in the opening game of the season.
MEET THE TEAM: Of the 25 players that make up Louisville's Opening Day roster, over half (13) appeared in a game for Louisville last season... 7 pitchers: Jimmy Herget, José López, Keury Mella, Cody Reed, Jesús Reyes, Lucas Sims and Jackson Stephens ; 4 infielders: Brian O'Grady, Taylor Sparks, Blake Trahan and Josh VanMeter ; and a pair of outfielders: Phillip Ervin and Nick Longhi . RHP Sal Romano has also donned the Louisville uniform, but spent the entire 2018 season in Cincinnati.
-Sixteen (16) players bring MLB experience to the Bats, while three (3), RHP Vladimir Gutierrez , C Chris Okey and OF Aristides Aquino , are set to make their Triple-A debuts.
-Of the 16 players with MLB experience, 9 have played for the Reds: Mella, Reed, Reyes, Romano, Sims, Stephens, Trahan, Aquino and Ervin, with all of them playing exclusively for the Reds, with the exception of Sims (ATL).
-Eight (8) total players, including Sims, have played for MLB teams other than CIN: Anthony Bass (SD-HOU-TEX-CHC), Matt Bowman (STL), Odrisamer Despaigne (SD-BAL-MIA-LAA), Ian Krol (WSN-DET-ATL-LAA), Juan Graterol (LAA-MIN), Christian Colón (KC-MIA) and Sherman Johnson (LAA).
LEARN FROM THE BEST: New manager Jody Davis will lead a coaching staff that features pitching coach Jeff Fassero returning for his fourth year, and hitting coach Leon Durham and bench coach Dick Schofield returning for their second seasons in Louisville. Schofield, who began 2018 as the team's bench coach, managed the Bats for 127 games last season after then-incumbent manager Pat Kelly was named Cincinnati Reds bench coach following the April 19 firing of then-Reds skipper Bryan Price. Heading into 2019, Louisville boasts the only coaching staff in professional baseball that all played at least 10 seasons in the Majors.
L1C4: Toledo starting pitcher, right-hander Kyle Funkhouser , rated the #11 prospect in the Tigers' system by MLB.com, is set to start against the Bats today. The University of Louisville grad (2013-16) was a star for the Cardinals, going 35-12 with a 2.81 ERA in 73 games (56 starts) with 182 walks and 376 strikeouts in 379.2 innings of collegiate baseball, earning All-ACC First Team honors in 2015 and getting drafted in the 1st round (35th overall) by the Dodgers that year (did not sign), and by the Tigers in the 4th round (115th overall) in the 2016 draft.
INJURED LIST: The Bats begin the 2019 campaign with 3 players on the Injured List: infielder Hernan Iribarren , left-handed pitcher Juan Martinez and outfielder/infielder Nick Senzel . Senzel, who is the Reds' top prospect, hit .310 in 44 games with Louisville last season.
I'D LIKE TO BUY A VOWEL…: Tonight's starting pitching matchup, featuring Louisville's Despaigne (9 letters) and Toledo's Funkhouser (10 letters), totals 19 combined characters between the starting pitchers' last names. The 19 characters are the most in a Louisville Bats game since July 29, 2018, when LOU's Robert Stephenson (10 letters) faced off against Rochester's Stephen Gonsalves (9 letters) in a 3-2 Bats win in 10 innings at Louisville Slugger Field, with Blake Trahan recording the walk-off hit.
LOOKOUT!: The Chattanooga Lookouts have returned as the Cincinnati Reds' Double-A affiliate in the Southern League, previously being the club's AA team for 21 seasons from 1988-08. Over the past 10 seasons, Carolina (2009-11) and Pensacola (2012-18) served as Cincinnati's Double-A team, with Pensacola swapping Chattanooga this offseason as AA team for the Minnesota Twins.