Gwinnett erupts for seven runs in seventh, routs Memphis 10-3

Gwinnett spent six innings waiting for a crack in Memphis, then ripped the game open in one ruthless seventh. The Stripers scored seven times in the frame, piled up five doubles and a home run, and turned a tense afternoon at AutoZone Park into a 10-3 rout that evened the six-game series at 1-1 and gave Gwinnett its first win over the Redbirds this season.

The seventh started with Chadwick Tromp driving in the first run on a double, and DaShawn Keirsey Jr. followed with another RBI double to keep the pressure on. Brewer Hicklen added an RBI single, Jim Jarvis ripped a two-run double, and Aaron Schunk finished the burst with a two-run homer, his fourth of the season. By the time the inning ended, Gwinnett had its biggest run-scoring inning of the year and Memphis had no way to stop the bleeding.

That was the swing point, because the game had been tight until then. Memphis had taken a 1-0 lead in the second when Jimmy Crooks reached on an error and later scored on a double-play groundout, and Gwinnett was still stuck on just two hits through six innings. Anthony Molina kept the Stripers within reach with a solid start, allowing one unearned run over 4.1 innings, and Hunter Stratton earned the win with a scoreless sixth. Once Gwinnett’s lineup found daylight, the pitching advantage Memphis had built evaporated fast.

Quinn Mathews, a 25-year-old left-hander and one of Memphis’ most prominent arms, was excellent in defeat. He struck out eight over five scoreless, one-hit innings, but the Redbirds never got him any cushion, and one inning later they were chasing a game that had already slipped away. That is the danger with Gwinnett right now: if the lineup gets one clean inning, it can turn competitive baseball into a rout in a hurry.

Jarvis continued his own heater with a three-hit afternoon, extending his season-opening on-base streak to 17 games. Over that stretch, he was hitting .394/.481/.576, the kind of production that keeps forcing a look upward. Schunk finished with a game-high three RBIs and was batting .357 with three home runs, eight RBIs and a 1.101 OPS in seven road games, another reminder that Gwinnett’s middle order has the kind of pop that can flip a game in one swing. The Stripers finished with 14 hits and 10 runs, both season highs, and carried that surge into Thursday’s finale, set for 7:45 p.m. ET back at AutoZone Park.