Sounds pound 51s pitching, complete four-game sweep
The 51s came into this week’s series against Nashville after a highly successful road trip, winning 6-of-8 and surging into first place.
But all that quickly came crashing to a halt as they ran into an equally-hot team.
The 51s suffered their first sweep of the season on Thursday, losing 13-2 to Nashville at Cashman Field for their fourth straight loss.
“We ran into some good pitching, starting pitching,” catcher Johnny Monell said. “Our starting pitching didn’t really help that much this series. Hopefully we bounce back and the rotation turns over and we go into the next series and do our job.”
Gabriel Ynoa and Sean Gilmartin, the 51s two most consistent starting pitchers, both gave up their season-high in runs in the series and a day after Rafael Montero tossed a quality start, Nashville tagged starter Seth Lugo for seven runs on 10 hits in six innings.
Lugo gave up solo home runs in the first two innings. He surrendered another run on a ball center fielder Kyle Johnson lost in the twilight in the fourth inning before allowing four two-out runs in the fifth.
“I think he kind of got to a point where he wasn’t trusting his stuff. He’s got a good arm,” acting manager Jack Voigt said. “He’s a Major League roster player for a reason and I think it got to a point where it snowballed a little bit with a little hit here and then a ball to the wall over there.”
Nashville scored five more runs in the seventh off of reliever Jeff Walters, who got just one out in his appearance.
All told, the Sounds scored 35 runs in the four-game series.
“They came here and they hit,” Voigt said. “They were coming in in the lower part of the league as far as team batting average but in this game, numbers can say certain things but you still have to go out and perform on the field.”
While the Sounds were beating up on 51s pitching Thursday, their starter Chris Smith gave up just two runs and struck out six in his six-inning outing.
“He did a pretty good job slowing hitters down and speeding them up and also keeping the ball down and on both sides of the plate,” Monell said.
Monell had two of the team’s four hits off of Smith and took him deep in the fourth inning. Travis Taijeron had the other RBI in the game, driving in Monell in the sixth, and T.J. Rivera had the 51s’ other hit — a double in the second inning — extending his hitting streak to 13 games in the process.
Now, mercifully for the 51s who have lost eight consecutive games to Nashville, the Sounds will leave town for the rest of the year.
“We had a good road trip and coming home and (getting) swept the first series here, that’s something that we’ve just got to turn the page and move on and just be able to come and play tomorrow and try to win this series that’s coming up,” Monell said.
Betsy Helfand can be reached at bhelfand@reviewjournal.com. Follow on Twitter: @BetsyHelfand