Aguiar shines in return, Louisville blanks Memphis 6-0

Louisville needed a clean answer after two rough nights, and Julian Aguiar helped provide it. Back in the rotation for his first Louisville start since April 8, the left-hander threw four scoreless innings and the Bats followed with a late surge, blanking Memphis 6-0 on June 5 at AutoZone Park.

The win came after Louisville had been outscored 23-4 in losses of 18-4 on June 3 and 5-0 on June 4. Instead of letting that stretch linger, the Bats improved to 32-28 and evened the six-game set against the Redbirds, who fell to 37-24. The game drew 3,232 fans, started at 7:07 p.m. and lasted 2 hours, 30 minutes.

Aguiar looked like a pitcher who had something to prove in his return from the injured list. He struck out the first batter he faced, allowed only two hits and one walk, and worked through four innings without giving Memphis a run. The outing mattered beyond one June night: Aguiar, a 25-year-old left-hander from Long Beach, California, was Cincinnati’s 12th-round pick in 2021 and missed the entire 2025 season while recovering from Tommy John surgery.

Sam Benschoter took it from there and kept the shutout rolling. He retired the first seven batters he faced in relief, and Louisville’s bullpen kept the Redbirds pinned down the rest of the way. Hunter Parks added two scoreless innings with four strikeouts, giving the Bats a complete pitching performance in a game they could not afford to let slip.

The offense finally broke through in the sixth after Garrett Hampson reached and Ivan Johnson extended the inning with smart baserunning and a double that cracked the game open. Francisco Urbaez followed with a two-run hit, Michael Chavis added an RBI single, and Louisville quickly turned a tense scoreless game into a 3-0 lead. Bruce Zimmermann had mostly held the Bats in check through 5.2 innings, but once Hancel Rincon took over, the damage came fast.

The decisive blows arrived in the eighth, when the two Michaels went deep. Michael Toglia launched a 447-foot solo shot to the batter’s eye for his 14th homer of the season, and Chavis followed with a two-run blast, his 11th, to push Louisville to its fourth shutout win of the year. Memphis managed only three hits and went 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position, while Louisville finished with 10 hits and no errors, the kind of response contenders lean on when they need the next game to feel nothing like the last.