NORFOLK, Va. — Travis Wood of Bryant turned in a dominating performance on Friday night, shutting out the Norfolk Tides on just five hits over eight innings in the Louisville Bats’ 7-0 road win in International League action.
Wood struck out nine and walked just one while improving his record to 5-6 and lowering his earned run average to 3.12.[more]
Jesus Delgado pitched a perfect ninth to close out the victory for the Bats (Class AAA Cincinnati Reds).
The Tides (Class AAA, Baltimore Orioles) only managed to get two runners on base in two innings against Wood. After they went down in order in the first, Josh Bell doubled to start the second then Wood hit Nolan Reimold. But on a sacrifice attempt, Wood bounced off the mound, fielded Blake Davis’ bunt and threw to third for a force. A strikeout and another groundout ended the threat.
In the third, Wood pitched around a two-out single by Jeff Salazar. In the fourth, he worked past a two-out single by Davis. With the final out of the inning, he started a stretch in which he retired seven straight before Reimold led off the seventh with a single. Wood fanned Davis then induced a doubleplay ball to move the game to the eighth.
The lefty issued his only walk to start the eighth then, with two down, surrendered a single to Salazar before ending his evening with a groundout to second on his 103rd pitch.
Louisville scored a run in the first, three in the fourth, two more in the sixth and a final run in the top of the ninth.
In his last 10 starts, Wood is 5-3 with a 2.82 earned run average and an opponents’ batting average of just .215. In 67 innings over that stretch, he’s fanned 65 and walked just 15.
A star for the Bryant Hornets high school team and the Bryant Black Sox American Legion team, Wood was selected in the second round of the 2005 Major League Baseball draft.
He made a serious bid to make the Reds’ rotation this spring and wound up being beat out by rookie sensation Mike Leake. Wood was the last player the Reds optioned out to Louisville before the season started. He leads the Bats in starts (15), innings pitched (98) and strikeouts (97).
