Sounds sweep Bats in doubleheader, Louisville offense stalls again

Louisville had the first crack at control in a doubleheader built by rain and finished by Nashville. The Bats scored first in the opener and led again early in the nightcap, but the Sounds wore them down over 4 hours, 44 minutes of baseball at Louisville Slugger Field and left with a 3-1, 9-6 sweep on May 7.

Game one looked manageable for a while. Edwin Arroyo opened with a single, then scored on a wild pitch to extend his hit streak to eight games and give Louisville a 1-0 lead in the first inning. Davis Daniel settled in after that, and the Bats backed him with steady defense while he held Nashville scoreless through two innings. But the middle innings flipped the game. Brock Wilken drove in the tying run with an RBI single in the fourth, and Nashville pushed ahead in the fifth on an RBI fielder’s choice. Sean Crow, who got the win, finished the job in a 3-1 Sounds victory that took just 1 hour, 57 minutes. Daniel was tagged with the loss after allowing two runs over five innings, and Craig Yoho earned the save after Nashville added insurance runs in the sixth and seventh. Louisville managed only three hits, and the offense never found a second burst after the first-inning run.

The second game gave Louisville another quick opening, and for a few minutes it looked like the Bats had learned the lesson from the afternoon. Arroyo singled again to stretch his hitting streak to a team-high nine games, Noelvi Marte followed with an RBI single, and Hector Rodriguez scored as Louisville jumped ahead 2-0. Then the pressure shifted. The Bats loaded the bases on three straight walks, but Thomas Pannone escaped the jam, and Nashville started to chip away. Nate Peterson made his Louisville debut and worked a scoreless first, but the Sounds kept stacking disciplined at-bats and later power until the game got away.

That’s the story of the day: Louisville had two chances to land the first punch and never delivered the one that mattered after the early jolt. The May 5 rainout turned Thursday into a long twin bill, and the 4,422 fans who stayed for the nightcap watched Nashville turn a close day into a sweep. Marte, a 24-year-old right fielder who already reached the majors in 2023, drove in one of the early runs, but the Bats’ lineup could not match Nashville’s response once the Sounds found their rhythm. Louisville entered the night at 21-15; it left with a reminder that tight games can unravel fast when the middle innings belong to the other club.