EVANSVILLE, Ind. – Beginning a nine-game home stand tonight at Bosse Field, the Evansville Otters demolished the Lake Erie Crushers 9-1.
Guided by the long ball, the Otters’ (25-40) bats showed up early against the Crushers (38-26) and the club never looked back.
Opening the scoring in the first, Gary Mattis hit a solo shot to left-center field to make it 1-0.
The only run of the game for Lake Erie came in the top of the second when they tied it at one, then Evansville immediately answered and took off.
In the home second, Dakota Phillips hit a solo homer to right, giving the Otters back the lead. Pavin Parks added to the fun in the third inning with a three-run blast making it a 5-1 contest.
After a couple of quiet innings, the club found the scoreboard for the final time tonight, plating four runs on five hits in the sixth to bust the game wide open. Highlighting the inning, Parks hit an RBI double off the wall in right field before the final run came in on a Delvin Zinn RBI single.
Evansville out-hit Lake Erie 10-6 tonight, led by Parks with two knocks and four RBI. Zinn and Phillips also strung together multi-hit performances. The Otters played a clean game defensively with no errors.
Backed by strong offense, Braden Scott (2-9) took the win after tossing seven full innings of one-run ball with eight strikeouts. Out of the bullpen, Jon Beymer and Michael McAvene both tossed scoreless frames to end the night. The Otters handed Darrien Ragins (7-1) his first loss of the year.
Tomorrow, the Otters have a chance to win their first series of the season against Lake Erie. The first pitch is set for 6:35 p.m. CT. Coverage is available on the Otters Digital Network and FloBaseball.
