Sounds’ late rally falls short in 6-5 loss to Tides

Nashville got within one swing of turning the night around, but the Sounds never fully escaped the damage from the first two innings and dropped a 6-5 decision to Norfolk in the fourth game of the series at First Horizon Park.

The Tides struck first and struck hard against Quinn Priester, building a 3-0 lead in the opening frame on a two-run homer from Creed Willems. Nashville answered immediately. Luis Lara and Jett Williams opened the bottom of the first with back-to-back singles, Eddys Leonard drove in Williams, Ramón Rodríguez chipped in with an infield hit, and Ethan Murray followed with an RBI single to pull the Sounds back within a run.

That was as close as Nashville got until the sixth. Norfolk pushed the margin back to 6-2 in the second and added a Christian Encarnacion-Strand solo homer, forcing the Sounds to spend the next four innings chasing. The offense went quiet after the opening frame, and the middle innings looked like the kind of stretch that usually buries a comeback before it starts.

Then the sixth flipped the tone of the game. After Jordyn Adams was hit by a pitch and Jacob Hurtubise walked, Lara lined an RBI single and Williams cleared the bases with a two-RBI double. Just like that, a lopsided game was back to 6-5, and Nashville had the kind of late life that has already shown up repeatedly in this series.

Williams finished with three hits, another sign that the Brewers’ No. 3 prospect is carrying real impact at Triple-A, not just upside. Lara matched him with a three-hit night of his own, his sixth such game of the season, and Brock Wilken stretched his on-base streak to 20 consecutive games, still the best mark on the club.

The loss, though, still traced back to the early hole. Kaleb Bowman allowed one run on five hits over three innings before Jacob Waguespack entered and gave Nashville a bridge it badly needed. Waguespack was sharp, throwing three scoreless innings and striking out a season-high six. He left Norfolk stranded with the bases loaded in the eighth by running off three straight strikeouts, one more push that kept the game alive but did not produce a final answer at the plate.

That is the tension with Nashville right now: the offense keeps finding a way to make games interesting, and the bullpen can hold the line, but the margin for error disappears fast when the first inning turns into a deficit. After walking off Norfolk 7-4 two nights earlier on Williams’ three-run homer, the Sounds showed they can change a game late. On Friday, they simply ran out of innings before the rally could fully cash in.