The Chattanooga Lookouts lost their final regular-season home game, falling 6-2 Wednesday afternoon to the Mississippi Braves.
Chattanooga will need some help in order to play again this year at AT&T Field.
The Lookouts lost 6-3 Tuesday night when Mississippi erupted for a four-run ninth inning, and the Braves had another four-run outburst in the second inning Wednesday. Mississippi opened the second with Connor Lien’s double to left field, and that was followed by Willians Astudillo’s single to center, Johan Camargo’s two-run triple to center, Kade Scivicque’s single to left and Stephen Gaylor’s infield hit.
Each of those hits came at the expense of Lookouts starting pitcher Felix Jorge.
The Lookouts pulled within 4-2 in the sixth on T.J. White’s two-out single to center that scored Dalton Hicks, but Mississippi put the game out of reach in the eighth on Carlos Franco’s leadoff double down the right-field line followed by a home run to center by Joey Meneses.
Chattanooga is now 35-30 in the Southern League’s second half and 71-64 overall entering tonight’s opener of a five-game series in Jackson. The Lookouts are third in the North Division, playing catch-up to Jackson and Montgomery, but still have a chance at qualifying for the playoffs as either the division champ or a wild card.
The Lookouts lost Wednesday before a crowd of 1,553 and wound up drawing 223,517 fans in 70 home dates. Chattanooga’s average of 3,193 fans per game is its lowest since AT&T Field opened before the 2000 season.
Palka, Granite honored
The Southern League has named Lookouts outfielders Daniel Palka and Zack Granite to its postseason all-star team.
Palka hit a league-leading 21 home runs and racked up 65 RBIs before getting promoted to Triple-A Rochester (N.Y.) on July 7. The former Georgia Tech standout was a midseason all-star as well and was tabbed Southern League player of the month for June.
Granite had a slow start to the season, hitting just .205 in April, but is now hitting .301 and leading the Southern League batting race. He also has a league-leading 53 stolen bases.
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524.