Arroyo’s three-run homer lifts Louisville past Columbus, 4-2

Darren McCaughan gave Louisville the kind of start it had been chasing, and Edwin Arroyo supplied the swing that turned a tight afternoon into a 4-2 win over Columbus at Huntington Park. In a six-game series that had already tilted the Clippers’ way, the Bats finally found a workable formula: get a runner on, pressure the defense, and cash in with one clean power blast.

The opening run came without a hit. Noelvi Marte walked to start the game, stole second and moved up on an error before Austin Hendrick brought him home with a groundout for a 1-0 lead. McCaughan then protected that edge through the early innings, limiting Columbus to two hits through the third and finishing with 5.2 innings, four hits, two runs and six strikeouts. For a Louisville club that had just dropped the previous two completed games in the series, that steadiness mattered as much as the score.

The decisive stretch arrived in the fifth. Will Banfield and Francisco Urbaez singled to put two more runners on, and Arroyo unloaded a three-run homer that broke the game open at 4-1. It was Arroyo’s 10th homer of the season, making him and Michael Chavis the only Louisville players in double figures at the time. The shot also fit a broader pattern for Arroyo, who has been one of the most productive bats in Louisville’s lineup this month.

Columbus answered with its own power when Kahlil Watson launched a 400-foot solo homer to briefly pull the Clippers back into the game, but Louisville never let the lead fully disappear. Hunter Parks helped bridge the middle innings after McCaughan ran into trouble, Kyle Nicolas escaped a seventh-inning jam by striking out Watson on a 98-mph fastball, and Luis Mey worked a scoreless eighth to keep the margin intact. The final out preserved a road win in front of more than 7,600 fans at Huntington Park.

The result gave Louisville its first victory of the series and a much cleaner blueprint for what has to work on the road. It was not a barrage, just a sequence of base running, situational contact and one decisive swing, the kind of Triple-A win that says more about readiness than a lopsided box score.