Round Rock Express Defeat Nashville Sounds 10-2

MLN Newswire - www.mlntherawfeed.com - ROUND ROCK, Texas – The Round Rock Express plated nine unanswered runs to hang a 10-2 defeat on the Nashville Sounds on Saturday evening at The Dell Diamond.

 The top of the Round Rock order did the majority of the damage as the first four Express hitters combined to go 8-for-16 with nine RBIs and eight runs scored on the evening.

 Outfielder Laynce Nix provided all of the Nashville offense by belting a pair of home runs in the losing effort. The blasts, which give him a team-high 13 longballs on the year, were his second and third of the series. Nix’s two-homer effort marked his first of the year and the fifth overall multiple-homer contest by a Sound in 2008.



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 Nix gave the Sounds a 1-0 lead in the top of the first inning when he homered for the second straight night, lifting a two-out solo blast to center off Round Rock starter Josh Muecke.

 After Ray Sadler tied the contest with a solo homer of his own in his second, Nix struck again in the third, touching Muecke for his second longball of the evening to stake the visitors to a 2-1 lead.

 Sounds starter Steve Hammond ran into trouble over the next two Round Rock frames as the left-hander gave up seven combined runs as the Express jumped out to an 8-2 lead.

 In the bottom of the third, the Express tied the contest when Muecke led off with a single and scored on a J.R. Towles RBI double. After J.R. House drew a walk, Mark Saccamanno gave the home club its first lead of the evening with a three-run homer to left-center, his 17th roundtripper of the year.

 An inning later, the two J.R.’s connected for back-to-back homers off Hammond to extend the Express lead to 8-2. Towles drilled a two-run blast to left which scored Edwin Maysonet (single) before House followed with a solo shot to left-center. The longballs were the players’ third and seventh of the year, respectively.

 Round Rock stretched its lead to 10-2 with a pair of runs against reliever Zach Jackson in the sixth. House contributed an RBI single before Towles scored his third run of the night on a Saccamanno groundout.

 Sounds centerfielder Tony Gwynn extended his season-best hitting streak to eight games with an eighth-inning single off former Sound Chad Paronto.

 Muecke (6-6) picked up the win by turning in a quality start for the Express. He allowed two runs on four hits while striking out eight batters over seven innings of work.

 Hammond (0-2) suffered his second loss in as many starts for the Sounds this season. He surrendered a season-high eight runs on eight hits, including four homers, over his four innings of work.

 The teams wrap up the series with a 7:05 p.m. finale on Sunday evening. Left-hander Chris Narveson (2-9, 5.50) will toe the rubber for Nashville to face Round Rock right-hander Jack Cassel (5-1, 2.05).

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