The Chattanooga Lookouts opened their final homestand of the Southern League's first half Sunday evening with a 6-5 triumph over the Jackson Generals at AT&T Field.
With only four more home games remaining before the Lookouts close the half with a 10-game journey, have the games flown by to this point or felt about right?
"It seems about right," Lookouts shortstop Nick Gordon said. "It's kind of been different for me playing these five-game series, but I think it's gone well so far. I had not looked to see how many homestands we had left, but I'm glad we're here now."
Sunday also marked the first home game for the Lookouts since the installation of an electronic billboard behind the AT&T Field scoreboard. The new billboard previews upcoming events at the 6,340-seat facility to vehicles traveling on both sides of Olgiati Bridge.
Chattanooga players had extra reason to appreciate being back in town after their bus traveling back from Birmingham broke down early Sunday morning just north of Fort Payne, Ala. The Lookouts lost three of five against the last-place Barons, but Sunday's win improved their record to 31-25 and pulled them into a three-way tie with Tennessee (30-24) and Montgomery (31-25) in the North Division race.
Jackson is just two games back at 29-27.
"We've got most of our games left on the road," Lookouts manager Jake Mauer said. "We had the benefit of playing here a lot early. Hopefully it works out for us, but we're still talking about two weeks, and even 10 days from now, our team could look really different. When we get it down to four or five games left, I bet we pay more attention, but we still have a ways to go."
Said first baseman Dan Gamache: "We know where everybody is, but if you just go out there every day and do your job, hopefully good things will happen. Even when we were playing Birmingham, it's not like you could tell they were 12 games back. They played with the same intensity that we did."
Gamache singled to center in the first inning to score Gordon and Edgar Corcino to give Chattanooga a 3-0 lead, but errors by Gamache and Gordon in the fourth inning allowed Jackson to pull even at 3-3. The Generals led 5-4 heading into the bottom of the ninth, but the Lookouts tied it on Travis Harrison's double to left that scored LaMonte Wade and won it on Ryan Walker's double to center that scored Harrison.
The Lookouts and Generals are scheduled to play again tonight at 7:15, with Stephen Gonsalves (0-2, 3.18) expected to take the mound for Chattanooga and Alex Young (3-3, 4.64) for Jackson.
"I'd say we're doing OK," Mauer said. "We're pitching pretty well, and our starters especially have done a good job. Our bullpen on the back end has been really good. We're kind of a pitching and defensive team, and that's kept us in a lot of games."
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524.