Braden Scott made his eighth start and after a rocky first couple of batters, settled in well. He retired the next three batters, allowing one run to score.
Ellis Schwartz exploded with a leadoff triple in the third, and was brought in by a sacrifice fly from Graham Brown. In the fifth inning, Schwartz launched a solo home run to give Evansville the lead 2-1. Scott kept dealing and grabbed eight strikeouts across the next few innings.
JJ Cruz led the seventh with a 443-foot home run to extend the Otters lead to 3-1. Scott entered the seventh, but after two leadoff walks and a sac bunt, Nick McAuliffe was called on to slam the door. After a fly ball to center kept the runners put and a slow roller to short, it looked like he had done just that. But a bang-bang play at first didn’t go the Otters way and a run scored, finishing Scott’s day with two earned runs.
Two runners reached with one out in the eighth and Evansville went to Alex Valdez. He got a force out at second but after a wild pitch allowed the runner from first to get to second, a two-strike single gave Joliet a 4-3 lead.
The Otters couldn’t get a hit in the ninth, even though they had two balls come off the bat at over 100 miles per hour, and fell 4-3 in the rubber match to Joliet.
Evansville has an off day Monday before travelling to Gateway to take on the Grizzlies for their midweek series. The series opener on Tuesday will start at 6:30 p.m. CT.
