EVANSVILLE, IN – The Evansville Otters closed out their series against the Gateway Grizzlies tonight with a 6-2 win at Bosse Field. Situational hitting was a virtue for the Otters (2-5), capitalizing on the Grizzlies (3-3) mistakes to earn their first home win of the 2024 regular season.
Evansville saw dominant pitching throughout the game. Right-hander Parker Brahms (1-1) saw six frames of control on the hill, allowing just a pair of runs on seven hits with no walks and six strikeouts.
Tyler Driver, Leoni De La Cruz and Michael McAvene then threw one scoreless inning each out of the bullpen, allowing just one baserunner the rest of the way with another three strikeouts.
Offensively, the Otters swung the bats into action early, plating one run in the bottom of the first on a sacrifice fly from David Mendham.
Gateway answered in the third inning and briefly took a 2-1 lead in the fourth off a solo home run.
Punching back quickly, the Otters answered with a run in the bottom of the frame. After reaching on an error and being moved to third on a separate error, Jomar Reyes scored on a wild pitch that was blocked by the Gateway catcher. The ball hit the bottom of the mask, lodging itself inside his chest protector, bringing in a run on the dead ball to tie the game.
The Otters put the game out of reach with a four-run fifth inning. After a one-out double from Patrick Lee and a fielder’s choice, Lee came in to score on a double-steal throwing error into center field by the catcher, giving Evansville a 3-2 advantage.
They added on with a Mendham run-scoring double. Two batters later, Randy Bednar hit his second bomb in two days to left field, making it 6-2 to finalize the scoring.
Jake Green had another multi-hit game for Evansville. Bednar led the way with two RBIs and Lee scored twice.
Evansville’s six-game home stand will continue tomorrow against Joliet. The Slammers roll in for the weekend series set to begin at 6:35 PM CT.
