OTTAWA, ON, Can. – The Evansville Otters (24-39) took the opener against the Ottawa Titans (31-33) on Friday night, 5-2. This is the first time this season Evansville has won back-to-back road games.

Both teams got runners on through the first three innings, but neither could push any runs across. For the Otters, they sent Braden Scott for his 13th start and he stranded four baserunners through the first three innings.

Ottawa struck first with a two-run home run in the bottom of the fourth.

Not to be outdone, Evansville responded with two solo home runs of their own. JJ Cruz led off the inning with a two-strike blast into right field. Mason White almost had his first home run of the year, only to be robbed. Then Dennis Pierce hit his team leading ninth home run of the year, and his third of the week, to tie the game at two.

Scott worked a clean fifth and Evansville struck for a run in the sixth with a triple off the bat of Ellis Schwartz, who now has a hit in his last seven starts.

Scott worked through some more traffic, stranding three runners over the next two innings to preserve the 3-2 lead. He finished his seven innings only allowing two runs, working his sixth quality start of the season. Nick McAuliffe followed in the eighth, and after two runners reached scoring position with one out, he got the next two batters without allowing a run to score.

The Otters added some cushion in the ninth with back-to-back doubles from Cruz and White.  L.J. Jones added another run with a two-out single to extend the lead to 5-2.

Nolan Thebiay entered to pitch the ninth and worked a 1-2-3 inning to end the game and earn his first professional save. Evansville pitchers ended the night stranding 12 runners while only allowing two runs.

Evansville is back in action tomorrow night at 5:00 p.m. CT for the middle game of the series before the noon CT series finale on Sunday. The Otters then travel back to Bosse Field to host the Lake Erie Crushers to end the month.

The Otters got started quickly with two lead off singles, with both runners eventually coming around to score. The added one in the third off a David Mendham single to jump out 3-0 in the first.

Evansville sent out Joan Gonzalez for his fourth start. After working a clean first inning, three straight batters reached to start the second. Gonzalez limited the damage, getting the next three batters out to hold Evansville’ 3-2 lead.

After a scoreless third, Evansville loaded the bases with no outs in the fourth for the second straight night. Dennis Pierce came to the plate and hit the Otters’ first grand slam of the year to jump Evansville out to a 7-2 lead.

After the second inning, Gonzalez settled in. He used a great throw-in from Keenan Taylor to cut down a runner at second base, helping him to shut down the Capitales through five.

Evansville struck for their second big inning of the night in the sixth. Some great at-bats and mistakes from Quebec helped the Otters to score three and load the bases again. Mendham got his third hit of the night with a two-RBI double to extend the lead to 12-2.

Gonzalez continued to deal and looked better the longer he went. He struck out three in his final two frames, including the final batter he saw. Gonzalez finished with seven innings pitched, striking out six and walking just one for his second straight start as he earned his third straight quality start. He has started both wins for Evansville in July.

Nolan Thebiay followed him and worked the eighth, allowing a single run. Evansville added another run off a position player in the ninth before Thebiay finished the game with a 1-2-3 ninth.

Four separate Otters had three hits and six had multi-hit games. All but one starter scored a run and got into the hit column.

Evansville travels to Ottawa to take on the Titans tomorrow night for the weekend series to finish their season-long nine-game road trip. The game is scheduled to start at 6:00 p.m. CT.