LOUISVILLE — Travis Wood, the left-handed starter for the Class AAA Louisville Bats, appears to have hit his stride this season for the Cincinnati Reds’ affiliate in the International League.
On the heels of a game in which he allowed just one run on two hits and struck out 11 in eight innings, Wood, a former Bryant star, picked up his second win of the season with six innings of stingy pitching against the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees as Louisville prevailed 5-1 on Saturday, May 22.[more]
He allowed just one run on four hits, walking three and striking out five. He’s now 2-4 on the season with a 4.15 earned run average. Of his 110 pitches, 74 were strikes.
Wood retired seven of the first eight batters he faced including New York Yankees’ centerfielder Curtis Granderson on strikes in the first. Granderson is at Scranton/Wilkes-Barre on a rehab assignment.
Louisville supported Wood with two runs in the first and another in the second.
The Yankees got their lone run in the third on a walk and a pair of two-out singles. Another walk loaded the bases but Wood struck out Chad Huffman to strand them all.
That started a stretch in which he retired eight of nine, only surrendering a two-out walk to Granderson in the fifth. In the sixth, Huffman singled with one out but the southpaw induced a doubleplay ball from Rene Rivera to finish his work for the day.
In the meantime, back-to-back homers by Wilkin Castillo and Todd Frazier in the Bats’ fourth had bumped the lead to 5-1.
