The Lookouts should have collectivety taken a swing at Einstein's Theory of Relativity on Wednesday night. They had a lot of success with the ones they took on the field.
The home team exploded for 13 runs in the first three innings, and starter Stephen Fife settled down after a rocky start to toss six solid innings in his second career start as the Lookouts cruised to a 16-3 shelling of the Birmingham Barons Wednesday in front of 1,899 fans at AT&T Field.
The win pushed the first-place Lookouts to 27-18 the second half of the season and 62-53 overall. Will Savage (12-3, 3.38 ERA) will take the mound tonight in the second game of the series against the Barons.
Brian Cavazos-Galvez had a pair of homeruns and four RBIs; while Kyle Russell had a grand slam in the Lookouts' 8-run second inning that blew the game open. The team had 17 hits, with six players having multi-hit performances.
Lookouts manager Carlos Subero noted that the bats started to awaken during the previous series against Jacksonville.
"We were starting to get into a groove towards the end of that series," he said. "It's good to see we hit the ball pretty well tonight."
Fife allowed only one earned run and seven hits while striking out eight, improving to 2-0 since being traded from Boston.
"Stephen was able to throw a lot of strikes; he did a good job tonight," Subero said. "He started off slowly, but came back after that first inning and gave us six strong."
With 24 games remaining in the regular season, the Lookouts hold a 2 1/2-game lead over second-place Tennessee. According to the Lookouts manager, the key is to take things methodically.
"We just have to look at things day-to-day and not think about tomorrow," he said. "We've relied a lot on our pitching this season, and it looks like our offense is starting to come through."