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Walkoff Blast Caps First Baseman’s Two-Homer Night

Nashville, TN – First baseman Joe Koshansky’ s second home run of the evening, a leadoff blast in the bottom of the tenth inning, propelled the Nashville Sounds to a dramatic 5-4 victory over the first-place Omaha Royals on Friday evening at historic Greer Stadium.

Koshansky’s game-winning blast, which came on the first pitch he saw from Royals reliever Blaine Hardy, was the slugger’s team-leading 15th of the year and provided Nashville with its 14th last at-bat victory of the season.

The slugger’s walkoff heroics became necessary after the Sounds gave up a two-run lead in the ninth.

Nashville (49-43) improved to 5-5 in extra innings on the year while Omaha fell to 7-7 in extra frames.

Koshansky’s game-winning homer gave Sounds reliever Donovan Hand (1-0) his first career Triple-A victory. The right-hander worked a scoreless top of the tenth.

Hardy (2-2) took the loss after surrendering the game-ender to cap off his two-plus innings of work for the Royals.

Sounds starting pitcher Chase Wright took a bittersweet no-decision after he allowed two runs (one earned) on seven hits over seven innings of work, departing with Nashville holding a 4-2 lead. It marked the eighth time in his last 12 outings that the southpaw held the opposition to one earned run or fewer.

With his eighth quality start of the year, Wright lowered his home ERA to a miniscule 1.88 in his eight outings in Music City this season (10er/48.0ip).

The Nashville defense backed Wright by turning a season-high four double plays on the evening.

The game got off to a late start following a 47-minute rain delay.

Omaha took a 1-0 lead in the top of the third inning against Wright. Kurt Mertins led off with a single to center then scored one batter later when Ed Lucas dropped a sacrifice bunt up the third base line. On the play, Wright overthrew first base to allow Mertins to come all the way around to score in unearned fashion.

Koshansky propelled the home team to a 2-1 lead in the fourth when he belted a two-run homer off the top of the clubhouse building in center field. The blast came against Omaha starter Luis Mendoza. Brendan Katin, who opened the frame with a single up the middle, also scored on the longball.

Adam Stern (2-for-4) increased the Nashville lead to 4-1 in the sixth when his opposite-field, two-out triple to left-center off Mendoza plated Erick Almonte and Ben Johnson.

Royals catcher Manny Pina pulled the visitors back within 4-2 in the seventh with a mammoth solo homer to left-center off Wright that cleared the 80’ foot high guitar-shaped scoreboard. The tater was the backstop’s second of the year.

Nashville Sounds (49-43) 5, Omaha Royals (49-42) 4

July 16th, 2010

Hardy, B pitched to 1 batter in the 10th.

WP: Mendoza, L, Smith, C.

HBP: Ka’aihue (by Wright, C).

Pitches-strikes: Mendoza, L 101-67, Holland 24-16, Hardy, B 26-17, Wright, C 96-54, Stetter 12-5, Smith, C 36-21, Hand 12-6.

Groundouts-flyouts: Mendoza, L 7-3, Holland 1-1, Hardy, B 2-1, Wright, C 14-3, Stetter 0-1, Smith, C 0-1, Hand 0-2.

Batters faced: Mendoza, L 28, Holland 5, Hardy, B 8, Wright, C 29, Stetter 3, Smith, C 10, Hand 4.

Inherited runners-scored: Holland 1-0, Smith, C 1-0.

Umpires: HP: Takeshi Hirabayashi. 1B: Brian Sinclair. 2B: . 3B: Barry Larson.

Weather: 78 degrees, drizzle.

Wind: 2 mph, In from CF.

T: 3:06 (:47 delay).

Att: 4,339.

Compiled by MLB Advanced Media

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Adam Stern, Ben Johnson, Blaine Hardy, Brendan Katin, Chase Wright, Donovan Hand, Ed Lucas, Erick Almonte, Greer Stadium, Joe Koshansky, Kurt Mertins, Luis Mendoza, Manny Pina, Nashville Sounds, Omaha Royals

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