Jacksonville, FL – In a complete turnaround from last night’s game, the Nashville Sounds (39-38, 1-1) offense exploded and beat the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp (36-41, 1-1), 12-11, in extra innings on Wednesday afternoon 121 Financial Ballpark.
Down three runs in the top of the sixth, Wes Clarke stepped into the box with the bases loaded and two outs. He launched a go-ahead grand slam to give the Sounds their first lead in the ballgame.
But the game was far from over when Jacksonville took the lead back in the bottom half of the inning at 9-8. Nashville quickly responded with a double by Garrett Mitchell that tied the game and Joey Wiemer drove in another on a groundout to put the Sounds ahead 10-9. The back and forth continued when Troy Johnson launched a game-tying blast to right field in the bottom of the seventh to tie it back up at nine.
Evan McKendry got the start for Nashville and struggled mightily. He tied a career-high with 10 hits allowed and relinquished seven earned runs across his 4 2/3 innings. Kevin Herget (1.1 IP) and Tyler Woessner (1.0 IP) could not hold onto leads in their outings. The Sounds had trouble keeping the Jumbo Shrimp out of the scoring column in the early innings, but Ryan Middendorf (1-0) came up big with two scoreless innings that sent the game into extra innings tied at 10.
Jacksonville was sloppy in the field, and it came back to hurt them. Brewer Hicklen scored in both the second and fourth innings on errors by the second baseman and pitcher respectively. In the top of the 10th, Nashville scratched a run across the board via a Francisco Mejía sacrifice fly. With Mejía on first, Owen Miller hit a tailor-made double-play ball to the shortstop, but he threw it into right field and scored Mejía to extend the Sounds lead to 12-10. Only eight of the 12 runs scored by Nashville were earned runs.
Nolan Blackwood (S, 2) found himself in a jam in the bottom of the 10th after allowing a double to start the inning and a single to put runners on first and third with only one away. He escaped with the save in part due to a great over-the-shoulder grab on a fly ball in shallow right field by Patrick Dorrian to save a run.
The series between the Sounds and Jumbo Shrimp continues tomorrow night. Right-hander Chad Patrick (7-1, 2.76) will be on the hill for Nashville. He will face off against left-hander Patrick Monteverde (3-2, 5.28) for Jacksonville. The first pitch is at 6:05pm on Thursday at 121 Financial Ballpark.
Post-Game Notes
- After today’s win, the Sounds moved to 6-4 in extra innings and 8-0 when scoring at least 10 runs. The last game that Nashville lost when scoring at least 10 runs was on August 19th, 2021, at Memphis (12-11 loss in 10 innings).
- The 10 hits allowed by Evan McKendry tied his career high (July 5th, 2023, with Durham vs. Norfolk). It also is the most allowed by a Sounds pitcher this season, matching Chad Patrick’s eight that he gave up on April 26th at Louisville.
- Garrett Mitchell (2-for-3, 2 R, HR, 2 RBI, 2 BB) launched his fourth home run while on rehab assignment with Nashville. He also had two outfield assists which was the third time a Sounds player has done that this season (Noah Campbell on April 24th at Louisville & Chris Roller on May 8th at Durham).
The Nashville Sounds are the Triple-A affiliate of the Milwaukee Brewers and play at First Horizon Park. Single-game tickets and season ticket memberships for the remainder of the 2024 season are on sale now.
For more information, call 615.690.4487 or e-mail tickets@nashvillesounds.com
