SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – The Memphis Redbirds (65-37) collected a season-high 18 hits en route to their 14-4 series-opening win over the Salt Lake Bees (Angels), Tuesday night in Salt Lake City.
Tonight’s game was a matchup between the best pitching and hitting teams in the PCL this season. Memphis came into the game with the best ERA in the league at 3.26, while Salt Lake came into the game with the best team batting average at .292.
The Redbirds kicked off the scoring early in the game. Oscar Mercado doubled to lead off and scored on Luke Voit’s ninth home run of the season. Tyler O’Neill followed Voit with his 24th home run of the season. It was the second time in as many games that the two hit back-to-back home runs.
Rangel Ravelo went deep for the ‘Birds in the fourth inning, his 10th home run of the year. The score was 4-2 in favor of the ‘Birds until the fifth inning. With one out, Adolis Garcia launched a solo homer, his 14th of the season. Max Schrock followed that with a single, while Carson Kelly walked immediately afterwards. Ravelo then came up and hit his second home run of the game to make the score 8-2. Tonight was Ravelo’s first career multi-home run performance.
In the seventh, the ‘Birds exploded for six more runs. In the frame, Schrock and Kelly reached to leadoff, and Ravelo drove in the lead runner with a single. The bases were loaded after an Edmundo Sosa single when Voit tripled home all three runners. O’Neill followed Voit’s triple with his second blast of the night. It is the sixth time this season O’Neill has had a multi-home run game.
With six home runs on the night, the ‘Birds have now hit at least five home runs in back-to-back games, and have hit at least five home runs in a game three separate times this year. Tonight was just the fifth time in franchise history that Memphis had hit at least six home runs in a game.
Starter Kevin Herget pitched five strong innings for the ‘Birds, allowing three earned runs on nine hits and three walks, while striking out two batters. Matt Bowman pitched two scoreless relief innings, allowing just two hits and a walk, while whiffing four batters. Landon Beck pitched the final two innings, allowing one run.
Memphis and Salt Lake will play two more games before the ‘Birds head to Las Vegas for a four-game set. Memphis will return to AutoZone Park to play Sacramento and Fresno on August 1. For more information on single-game tickets and ticket mini-memberships, visit www.memphisredbirds.com/
