Storm Chasers Fall 9-5 To Bats

PAPILLION, NEB. – The Omaha Storm Chasers (13-17) had home runs from John Rave and Drew Waters, but still fell 9-5 to the Louisville Bats (19-12) Friday night. The Storm Chasers collected 6 extra-base hits in the game, but the Bats got a quality start for the 2nd straight outing in the victory.

The Bats started the scoring in the top of the 1st inning with a trio of runs from an RBI groundout and 2-run single off Storm Chasers starter Mitch Spence (1-2) to put Louisville up 3-0.

Spence fired a scoreless 2nd inning, but allowed another run on an RBI single in the 3rd inning and 2 more runs on an RBI fielder’s choice and RBI single in the 4th inning. Ethan Bosacker took over for Spence with one out and runners on the corners in the top of the 4th inning but allowed an RBI single to score an inherited runner and extend the Louisville lead to 7-0.

The Storm Chasers got on the board in the bottom of the 4th inning on a 2-run double from Luca Tresh that scored both Kameron Misner and Waters and cut the deficit to 7-2.

Bosacker retired all 3 batters in the top of the 5th inning, then worked around a one-out single for a scoreless 6th inning, finishing with 2.2 scoreless frames of relief.

Omaha’s John Rave led off the bottom of the 6th inning with a solo home run, but the Bats scored on an RBI single off Storm Chasers reliever Andrew Pérez in the top of the 7th inning to make the score 8-3 Louisville.

A leadoff error in the top of the 8th inning led to an unearned run scoring off Pérez and growing the margin to 9-3 in favor of the Bats.

Waters opened the bottom of the 9th inning with a home run, then Tresh and Abraham Toro hit back-to-back doubles to cut the deficit to 9-5, but Louisville got out of the inning without any further damage to finish the win.

The Storm Chasers host the Bats again at Werner Park for the fifth game of the series Saturday evening with first pitch scheduled for 6:05 P.M. CT.