CRESTWOOD, Ill. – The Evansville Otters (27-51) dropped the series finale in a high scoring affair against the Windy City ThunderBolts (31-47) Sunday afternoon, 15-11.
Graham and Logan Brown struck early as G. Brown singled followed by a L. Brown double to put Evansville on top 1-0.
Braden Scott made his 17th start of the season, allowing a run and striking out two in the first.
Keenan Taylor led off the second with his second solo home run in as many days to jump Evansville back to the lead. J.T. Benson followed that with a double and scored on a G. Brown single. Taylor wasn’t done mashing, as he hit another home run to give Evansville a 5-1 lead in the third.
J.J. Cruz hit a sacrifice fly to add another run in the fourth, and after newly signed Darryl Jackson singled to start the fifth, he would eventually be brought in on G. Brown’s fourth hit of the day to give the Otters a 7-1 lead.
Scott worked scoreless frames in the second, third and fourth, but Windy City would find four runs off of him in the fifth. After L. Brown’s opposite field home run pushed Evansville’s lead to 8-5, Scott went out for the sixth. He got one out, but allowed three runners to reach.
Nick McAuliffe was called on to finish the sixth, but allowed the three batters he faced to reach. Garret Crowley entered to finish the inning, but a defensive mistake and a double allowed four more runs to come across, putting Evansville behind 12-8.
After seven runs in the sixth, Crowley just needed nine pitches to get through the seventh as he pitched Evansville’s first immaculate inning of the season. Crowley went back out for the eighth, but gave up back-to-back hits and was replaced by Alex Valdez. He finished the eighth, allowing two more runs to score after another defensive mishap, making it 15-8.
The Otters didn’t go down without a fight, as they led off the ninth with back-to-back doubles. After two quick outs, Jackson got his second hit of the night. Dennis Pierce, Ellis Schwartz and G. Brown all were down to their final strike, but each reached base to keep the game alive. L. Brown came up to the plate as the tying run and hit a fly ball 15 feet shy of tying the game, as Evansville came up just short, 15-11.
The offense had 16 hits and G. Brown’s four hit game was the first for the Otters since July 9. All but one Otter recorded a hit and every starter reached base at least twice.
