The Memphis Redbirds came into tonight’s game looking to even this road series and add to their all baseball leading 14 wins away from AutoZone Park. Sadly, for Redbirds fans that weren’t the case as they would lose 3-2 to the Gwinnett Stripers and their third straight loss. Tonight’s loss also marks the second time this season a reliever has blown a save for the Redbirds.
Starter Connor Thomas pitched strong in his six innings of work striking out six stripers while managing only four hits and one earned run in a no contest appearance. Tonight, makes Thomas’s third straight outing of six innings this season. Thomas has thirty-six strikeouts and only six walks and has given up 39 hits and 15 earned runs from the mound.
The Redbirds would get on the scoreboard by starting the sixth inning with singles by Alec Burleson and Luken Baker followed by an Ali Sanchez RBI single to take the only lead of the game at 2-1. Burleson has owned the stripers this season with four home runs and has scored seven runs in the eight games played. Alec now leads the Redbirds in home runs [8] with Nolan Gorman being called up. Burleson has hits in eight of his last ten games and is riding a season-high six-game hitting streak.
In the bottom of the eighth inning, Junior Fernandez would come in to try and close the game out for the road birds. Timely hitting and a costly error by Ben Deluzio equaled two runs and the home win for the Stripers. As mentioned above this is the second save a Memphis reliever has blown this season.
The Stripers and Redbirds will face each other a total of twenty-seven times in the regular season which is most among any team on the schedule. Memphis now trails Gwinnett in the season series 4-6 and 5-11 going back to last season,
Game five of the six-game series is tomorrow evening at 5:05 Central Time from Coolray Field in Lawrenceville, Georgia. Starters will be a battle between right-handers with Aaron Brooks and Touki Toussaint taking the mound for the Redbirds and Stripers.
