Riding a dominant seven-inning pitching performance from Cody Gray, the Florence Freedom, presented by Titan Mechanical Solutions, shut out the Evansville Otters, 3-0, on Wednesday night at Bosse Field.
Gray (8-3) struck out a season-high 11 batters over his seven innings, walking only two batters and allowing just three hits. The right-hander escaped a bases-loaded, one-out jam in the first inning with consecutive strikeouts, and would allow just three baserunners in the rest of his outing.
The victory secured the sixth series win of the second half for the Freedom (47-28), and extended the team’s lead in the standings over second-place Evansville (40-33) to six games.
Left-hander Chris Nunn (0-1) made his Frontier League debut for the Otters and fanned nine batters over five innings. After beginning the game by allowing a leadoff walk to Daniel Fraga and hitting Taylor Oldham with a pitch in the foot, Nunn proceeded to strike out the next seven batters in a row. The streak ended when Fraga beat out an infield single with one out in the third and raced to second base on the play when the Evansville infield failed to cover the base. Nunn then unleashed a wild pickoff throw, allowing Fraga to reach third, from which he would eventually score on an Oldham single to left field.
Andrew Godbold drove in two runs on the evening to add to Florence’s lead, scoring Fraga from third in the fifth inning on a groundout to second, and lining a RBI-double to left-center in the seventh to plate Ozzy Braff, who had walked.
Jamal Wilson entered in relief of Gray in the eighth and pitched around two singles to keep the Otters scoreless, and Pete Perez earned his tenth save, striking out two batters in a perfect ninth inning.
Jordan Brower singled to right field in the top of the eighth to extend his hitting streak to 12 games, matching Fraga for the longest by a Freedom player on the season. Oldham and Fraga also collected two hits each, with the latter moving within one hit of his career high of 91. Dane Phillips delivered three of Evansville’s five hits in the game.
The Freedom will play for their first series sweep of the second half in Thursday’s series finale. Jordan Kraus (8-4) will start against Evansville right-hander Luc Rennie (5-3). First pitch is scheduled for 6:35 p.m. at Bosse Field.
The Florence Freedom are members of the independent Frontier League and play all home games at UC Health Stadium located at 7950 Freedom Way in Florence, KY. The Freedom can be found online at FlorenceFreedom.com, or by phone at 859-594-4487.
Florence Freedom