Chattanooga Lookouts 8, Birmingham Barons 6 Birmingham’s bid for a Southern League Championship repeat got off to a gut-punch start, dropping Game 1 in the best-of-three series. Early on, it was all roses: after two sleepy innings, the Barons exploded for four in the third. Calvin Harris coaxed a walk, Rikuu Nishida and William Bergolla stacked singles, and a wild pitch cracked the seal. Sam Antonacci lashed a base hit to right, cashing in two more. Ryan Galanie hit into a forced out, then another
wild pitch advanced him to second base, and DJ Gladney capped the party with an RBI knock.
The Barons weren’t done yet and looked to pad their lead in the next inning. In the fourth, Alec Makarewicz ripped a double, Jordan Sprinkle knocked him in, and Nishida bunted his way aboard. Sprinkle and Nishida then pulled off a double steal, and Bergolla’s sac fly made it 6-0. At this point, it looked like a laugher and that the game was well under Birmingham’s control.
Starter Tanner McDougal was nails, tossing three shutout innings with one hit, five punchouts, and not a single free pass. But then came Tyler Schweitzer, who unfortunately looked nothing like the guy who strung together eight scoreless outings in July and August. He breezed through the fourth and fifth and then imploded in the sixth, yielding six runs to let Chattanooga all the way back in it.
The contest stayed knotted until the ninth, when reliever Caleb Freeman took the ball and immediately found trouble. Austin Hendrick singled, Austin Callahan bunted him over, and pinch-hitter Cade Hunter delivered the go-ahead hit. A ground out and a balk moved Hunter to third, and Leo Balcazar tacked on another tally with a single to right. The air was officially out of the balloon.
The Barons had nothing left in the ninth, managing only a two-out walk from Ryan Galanie. Now it’s win-or-go-home on Thursday. We’ll be here with the recap!
Durham Bulls 9, Charlotte Knights 6 (Statcast box)
The Knights (63-82) actually drew first blood, thanks to Adam Hackenberg launching a 405-foot missile in the second. But the good vibes evaporated fast. Jonathan Cannon, already leaking runs, watched his defense implode behind him in the fourth as Ben Cowles, fresh off the waiver wire, airmailed a throw to nowhere, handing the Bulls two unearned runs. Suddenly, it was 5-2, and the Knights were playing catch-up.
Durham kept padding their lead, roughing up Bryse Wilson for another tally in the fifth to make it 6-2. The Knights did show a pulse in the sixth when Drake Logan chipped in a single, and Bryan Ramos and Hackenberg doubled, and suddenly it was a one-run game. However, the bullpen, as ever, had other ideas. Dalton Roach and Jairo Iriarte coughed up three more runs, and that was curtains for Charlotte. The bats did enough to make it interesting, but the pitching failed them yet again.
