Cave's Grand Slam Not Enough In 7-6, 10 Inning Loss To Bats

LOUISVILLE, KY (July 6, 2022) - The St. Paul Saints carried a lead into the eighth inning for the 37th time this season. For the seventh time they failed to hold on losing 7-6 in 10 innings to the Louisville Bats on Wednesday night at Louisville Slugger Field.

With the Saints trailing 5-2 in the seventh, Jake Cave’s hot bat gave the Saints the lead. Caleb Hamilton led off with a double to left. He was erased, however, when Curtis Terry hit a tapper to the third base side that was fielded by pitcher Eddy Demurias, who threw out Hamilton trying to go to third. José Godoy doubled putting runners at second and third and that was followed by a walk to Spencer Steer. That brought up Cave, who already extended his streak of reaching base to 48 consecutive games with a third inning walk. On a 3-0 he crushed a 410-foot grand slam the opposite way, over the left-center field wall, giving the Saints a 6-5 lead. It was his second grand slam of the season, the first Saints Triple-A player to do that, and his fourth career grand slam. Cave finished 1-4 with a grand slam, four RBI, and a run scored.

The lead didn’t last long, however, as the Bats utilized the long ball of their own to tie it as Stuart Fairchild hit a solo homer in the eighth, his seventh of the season.

In the 10th, the Saints had their 3-4-5 hitters up, but failed to score the runner from second.

In the bottom of the 10th with the placed runner at third and one out, Fairchild hit a medium fly ball to center that was dropped by Michael Helman as Lorenzo Cedrola scored the winning run. The Saints are now 4-7 in extra inning games this season.

The Bats struck first courtesy of a leadoff home run in the bottom of the first from Alejo Lopez, his second of the season, to make it 1-0.

The Saints grabbed the lead in the third and loaded the bases without a hit. Caleb Hamilton led off with a walk and Curtis Terry followed by being hit by a pitch. With two outs, Cave walked to load the bases. Tim Beckham followed with a two-run double down the left field line putting the Saints up 2-1. Beckham finished 2-5 with two doubles and two RBI. He is hitting .400 (32-80) over his first 20 games with the Saints.

The Bats regained the lead in the fifth courtesy of three doubles. Lopez led off the inning with a double to left. Tyler Stephenson doubled to right-center scoring Lopez tying the game at two. With one out, Cristian Santana doubled over the first base bag scoring Stephenson putting the Bats up 3-2. Tyler Motter made it 4-2 with a bloop single to right.

Another double proved costly against the Saints. Fairchild led off the sixth with a double to left. He was sacrificed to third and scored on a sacrifice fly from Lopez increasing the Bats lead to 5-2.

The same two teams meet Thursday night in game three of the six-game series at Louisville Slugger Field at 6:05 p.m. (CT). The Saints send RHP Jordan Balazovic (0-3, 9.24) to the mound against Bats RHP Robert Dugger (1-3, 5.06). The game can be seen on MiLB.TV and heard on KFAN Plus, 96.7 FM.