EVANSVILLE, Ind. – The Evansville Otters put up a six-run fifth inning to defeat the Windy City ThunderBolts Wednesday night, 6-4.
Windy City immediately found themselves ahead in the game in the first inning, capitalizing on an error from J.R. Davis to score the opening run.
On the next at-bat, Peyton Isaacson sent a three-run home run over the right field wall to bump the advantage to 4-0.
From there, the game stood still into the middle innings as starters Ryan O’Reilly and Justin Miller began to settle in.
Finally, the Otters broke through in the bottom of the fifth. Zach Biermann opened the scoring with an RBI single, bringing in Davis.
A few batters later, Andy Armstrong drew a bases-loaded walk to bring Evansville to within two.
Bryan Rosario tied the game at four with a two-run single later in the inning. Armstrong also scored on the play due to a throwing error, giving Evansville a 5-4 lead.
The lead grew once more in the next at-bat as Elijah MacNamee brought in the sixth run with an RBI single.
After the big Evansville inning, the bullpens got involved and the game returned to quick innings. As the ninth inning began, Evansville brought on Logan Sawyer to grab the save. Sawyer earned his league-leading 19th save after retiring the side in order.
The win went to Ryan O’Reilly, his sixth of 2022. He allowed four runs (none earned) on six hits in his six complete innings. Justin Miller received the loss for Windy City, allowing five runs on three hits. The Otters were out-hit in the contest 6-5.
The series concludes Thursday night at 6:35 p.m. at Bosse Field. Audio-only coverage is available on the Otters YouTube page, while the paid video stream is available via FloBaseball.
