Game recap: Mud Hens drop both games of doubleheader to Louisville

The Toledo Mud Hens suffered a doubleheader sweep against the Louisville Bats on Friday night at Fifth Third Field.

Mud Hens starter Matt Manning pitched a gem in the first game, going five hitless innings, but Toledo fell 4-2 in extra innings. The Bats used a four-run fourth inning to break open the second game on the way to a 6-5 win.

Manning walked three and struck out five in his five innings of work and exited after 87 pitches with a 1-0 lead. Toledo reliever Mason Englert gave up a run in relief and the game headed to extra innings. After both teams failed to score in the eighth inning, Louisville scored three runs in the top of the ninth off Mud Hens reliever Devin Sweet.

In the second game, the Mud Hens fell behind 6-1 after the Bats scored four fourth-inning runs. Toledo battled back to within one run at 6-5 after three runs in the bottom of the fourth and one in the fifth. But that was as close as they would get.

What happened : Justice Bigbie hit a solo home run in the second inning to start the scoring for the Mud Hens in Game 1.

That was the only run until the sixth inning when P.J. Higgins notched an RBI single off Englert and the game went to extra innings.

After neither team scored in the eighth inning, Louisville broke through with three runs in the ninth off Sweet. Mike Trautwein had a two-run double and Connor Capel had a sacrifice fly.

In the second game, the Mud Hens took an early lead when Parker Meadows tripled and scored on a single from Ryan Vilade.

The Bats quickly answered with two runs to retake the lead when Hernan Perez and Capel each recorded an RBI triple.

In the fourth inning, the Bats loaded the bases off starter Lael Lockhart before he was pulled to bring in Austin Schulfer to make his Mud Hens debut. Schulfer proceeded to throw three wild pitches to score each of the three base runners and give the Bats a 5-1 lead. Then Jacob Hurtubise added an RBI triple as Louisville came away with six runs in the inning.

Stephen Scott just missed a grand slam in the bottom of the fourth inning but drove home a run on a sacrifice fly to deep right-center field. Alvaro Gonzalez followed with a two-run triple to make it 6-4.

In the fifth, Vilade grounded into a double play that scored Meadows to make it 6-5.

Louisville reliever Alex Young (2-0) pitched a scoreless sixth inning to earn the win and Zach Maxwell pitched a scoreless seventh for his first save of the season.

He said it : “It was a tough one. It was a great game, both sides of the ball. We threw the ball well. We hit enough, but didn’t push across enough runs in the end. At the end of the day, I was happy with our offense. It was nice to get [Bigbie] starting to swing the bat a little bit. The result wasn’t what we wanted but I felt like we had chances...The resilience showed again in Game 2 we just didn’t pull out the outcome we wanted.” — Mud Hens manager Tim Federowicz

Comings and goings : Pitcher Alex Faedo was returned to Detroit from his rehab assignment. Starting pitcher Keider Montero was optioned to Toledo from Detroit. Relief pitcher Austin Schulfer and infielder Drew Maggi were assigned to Toledo. Mud Hens infielder Eddys Leonard was placed on the 7-day IL.

Up next : The Mud Hens and Bats will play in the fifth game of their six-game set on Saturday at 7:05 p.m. Ty Madden (0-3, 10.16 ERA) will start for the Mud Hens, while Lyon Richardson (1-4, 4.81 ERA) will draw the start for the Bats.