A season high crowd of 4,540 cheered the Otters to the series victory and Baez to the top of the Frontier League home run charts with his eighth and ninth homers of the season.
The third year Otter electrified the crowd early with a two run homer in the first inning. Noah Myers would extend the lead with a third inning solo home run that stayed just fair down the right field line. It was good for Myers’ fourth home run of the season.
The fifth inning was Evansville’s knockout punch. Ethan Skender led off with a base hit and Dakota Phillips doubled. Baez then hit his third home run of the series and second on the day in the fifth, launching a moonshot off the second row of billboards in left field.
Baez finished with 5 RBIs in the game and ten in the series. His nine home runs are more than any other player in the Frontier League. He now has three multi-home run games. The Otters single-season record is 23 home runs.
A native of Venezuela, now living in Arizona, Baez has nine home runs already in 21 games played this year after hitting eight in 81 games last season. The slugger has hit 109 homers in his 12 year professional baseball career with 24 coming in three years in the River City.
Austin Gossmann controlled the game from the mound. He threw five and a third innings allowing just one run on five hits. The Southern Indiana grad’s six strikeouts are a season high as he earned his third win of the year.
Evansville’s bullpen closed out the win without allowing a hit. Leoni de La Cruz worked an inning and a third. Jon Beymer struck out two in a flawless inning of work and Jake Polancic struck out the side in the ninth.
Evansville continues the homestand by opening a three game series with the Schaumburg Boomers Friday evening at Bosse Field. A 6:35 PM CT first pitch is part of Evansville Triplets Night and Nine Innings of Giving.
Friday night every ticket purchased for the game will get a corresponding raffle ticket. Fans can win a PS5, pickleball set, two 2024 season tickets, a black stone grill, D-Bat batting cage credits, an Otters Team Store $75 credit, a Doc’s Bar gift card or a chance to throw out the first pitch at an Otter’s Game.
All home and road Otters games this season are televised on FloSports with audio-only coverage available for free on the Evansville Otters YouTube page.
The Evansville Otters are the 2006 and 2016 Frontier League champions.
