The Evansville Otters suffered a walk-off loss at the hands of the Southern Illinois Miners Saturday night, as the Miners eked out a 3-2 victory to even the series.
The Otters would have to come from behind to eventually tie the game after the Miners took an early 2-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning, after an RBI groundout from Gianfranco Wawoe and a follow-up, two-out RBI single from Nolan Earley off of Otters starter Ryan O’Reilly. Both runs were unearned, as the inning began with a fielding error at short.
O’Reilly made his professional debut in the start, pitching through the fourth inning without allowing an earned run, giving up just the early two unearned runs on four hits, two walks, and six punchouts.
In the top of the fourth, Elijah MacNamee would tie the game with a two-run home run to left, his second big fly in the last three days. MacNamee has now driven home nine runs in three games going back to the Otters’ Thursday matchup with the Joliet Slammers earlier in the week.
Samson Abernathy came on in the bottom of the fifth inning in an excellent relief appearance, retiring all six batters he faced through the sixth.
Tyler Spring then entered the ballgame in the bottom of the seventh, making his league-leading 15th appearance, eventually adding two more innings to his 20.2 scoreless inning streak to start the season.
With the game still tied at two, the Otters managed to get the first two batters aboard in the top of the ninth, but the Miners succeeded in turning a 6-4-3 double play thanks to a favorable call on a bang-bang play at first that cut Evansville’s rally short.
Taylor Wright would try to send the game to extras in the bottom of the ninth when he entered from the bullpen, but after a walk to leadoff batter Nolan Earley and a successful sacrifice, Ian Walters delivered a walk-off ground rule double to drive in the winning run from second.
The final score was 3-2.
Taylor Wright (0-1) took his first loss of the season, while Joey Pulido earned the win (1-1).
The Otters will look to take the rubber match of the series Sunday night. First pitch will be at 5:05 p.m. Fans can catch an audio broadcast of Sunday’s game on the Evansville Otters YouTube channel, with a 4:50 p.m. pregame show.
