Sounds rally past Stripers, secure five of six in series

Down 3-1 and staring at a split, Nashville turned the bottom of the seventh into the inning that defined the series. The Sounds beat Gwinnett 4-3 at First Horizon Park on Sunday afternoon, May 31, and closed the six-game set by winning five of six, the kind of comeback that says more about a club’s current shape than any single Sunday result.

Luis Matos sparked the turnaround with his second home run of the season, trimming an early deficit after Gwinnett had jumped ahead 2-0 in the second inning. Nashville kept clawing back until the seventh, when Cooper Pratt opened the frame with a leadoff single and the Sounds strung together three unanswered runs. Luis Lara, Freddy Zamora and Ramón Rodríguez drove in the decisive sequence, turning a 3-1 hole into a 4-3 lead in one inning and handing the Stripers another loss in a one-run game.

That rally also gave the Sounds the final edge in a series that had already shown they could win in different ways. Nashville had enough middle-inning offense to erase mistakes, then enough bullpen work to protect the lead once it was in hand. The result pushed the Sounds to 35-22, while Gwinnett slipped to 29-28 after seeing the bullpen surrender the lead late.

Garrett Stallings set the tone on the mound, working four efficient innings and allowing two runs on five hits while striking out five. The right-hander entered the game 3-2 with a 3.72 ERA and 31 strikeouts, and he also carved out one 1-2-3 inning before handing the ball off. Jared Koenig, in a major league rehab appearance, faced just four batters in a scoreless fifth, then Junior Fernández covered the sixth and part of the seventh before the Stripers pushed across another run.

Nashville’s late relief finished the job. Craig Yoho extended his streak to 12 consecutive games without allowing an earned run and worked a 1-2-3 eighth, and Blake Holub earned his third save of the season by working around a leadoff walk and finishing with back-to-back groundouts and a fly out. Pratt’s 21-game on-base streak and his 13th stolen base kept the lineup moving, another sign that the Sounds are finding impact in the spots that most often decide Triple-A games.