The Columbus Clippers (45-39) crushed the Louisville Bats (43-41) 10-1 Monday. The Clippers were happy to be back at Huntington Park as they rallied for five scoring innings in the win. Not much offense was needed with Danny Salazar’s dominant performance.
Salazar (2-5, 4.75 ERA) had his best 2014 performance as a Clipper. He allowed one run on five hits with one walk and tied a season high with nine strikeouts in seven and one-third innings. Josh Smith (8-2, 4.28 ERA) had no such luck for the Bats. He went four and two-third innings and gave up five runs on nine hits with three walks and two strikeouts.
Louisville jumped out to a quick lead in the first. Ruben Gotay hit a one-out ground-rule double to left. A two-out single by Donald Lutz gave Louisville the lead.
The Clippers tied it in the bottom half of the inning. Jose Ramirez doubled and Tyler Holt singled to start the game. Elliot Johnson hit a line-drive to center caught by Jason Bourgeois, but the throw to the plate was not in time as Ramirez scored on the sacrifice fly.
The third inning was trouble for Smith. The Clippers started out with a walk by Jesus Aguilar, who celebrated his 24th birthday Monday. Johnson hit an infield single and Roberto “RoboCop” Perez hit a two-run double to center. Ryan Rohlinger then drove in Perez with a double to the left-center field gap.
Perez finished with two doubles and five RBI Monday. He overtook “El Jefe” Aguilar for the team lead with 40 on the season.
Eight of nine Clippers had a hit and everyone reached base safely. Tim Fedroff walked twice and extended his on-base streak to 22 games. Ramirez, Perez and Carlos Moncief each extended their hit streaks to nine, eight and seven games respectively.
The second and final game of the series and homestand is 7:05 Tuesday night. Zach McAllister (3-0, 1.48 ERA) will start the game for Columbus against Brett Marshall (0-3, 12.75 ERA) and the Bats.
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