Chris "I'm an Ethiopian" Corrigan took the mound for the Rebels Wednesday with all intentions of blowing through innings and shutting out the Tigers. Unfortunately, these intentions were sent smashing to the ground by the first five batters he faced.
Memphis put up three runs in the first inning and Bianco had the bullpen active early as Corrigan struggled. Corrigan gave up 4 runs on 5 hits in 3 innings of work.
The wiry pitcher was hitting around 88 or 89 on the gun while on the mound. He didn't seem to be hitting his spots very well and walked two batters. I'm not sure if he is able to control his offspeed stuff right now, and when he gets behind batters, it causes big innings like the first of this game.
Basham had a huge two RBI double to tie up the game in the bottom of the second. He lined the ball down the left field line with Evan Button and Matt Smith on the basepaths to push across the runs.
The Tigers really aren't a very good team. They had a couple errors from throwing mistakes that could happen to just about any team. Memphis has a few good bats in the lineup, but their clean-up hitter went 0 for 5, which is never a good sign for a team built on speed at the front of the order.
After Corrigan was released from purgatory, Nathan Baker managed to string together three shut out innings behind great defense and a couple key strikeouts. Baker has hitting 92 on the gun with his fastball and dipping down to 79 with his offspeed stuff. Baker, David Goforth and THE BITTLER combined for 5 shutout innings to finish up the game.
Goforth was slinging heat topping out at 95, and the Tigers had no idea what to do. Bittle struck out two in the final inning with "The Thing."
Jeremy Travis had the only roundtripper for the Rebels sending one over the right field wall. Travis now leads the Rebels in home runs with four. In my opinion, he can flat out rake at any given moment. Jordan Henry was 3 for 4 with a walk to keep his on base percentage over .500 for the season. He also caught fire stealing third in the first inning due to nearly traveling at 88 miles per hour and keeping a Flutz capacitor in his back pocket for good luck.
Rebels now sport at 13-4 record with a three game series against 'Bama coming up in a couple days. We'll have that preview for you on Friday. Enjoy your bracketology until then.