Louisville baseball blasts No. 6 Kentucky, 8-2

The Louisville baseball team exacted some revenge over Kentucky with an 8-2 throttling of the sixth-ranked Wildcats Tuesday night at Jim Patterson Stadium. The Cards fell to their arch-rivals, 8-5, two weeks ago in Lexington.

Ballard High product Jake Snider was the star of stars for U of L at the plate. The sophomore went 3-for-5 with a two-run homer in the bottom of the sixth that put a lid on the Cardinal scoring.

Danny Oriente stayed red hot, extending his hit streak to 10 games with a two hit, two RBI evening. His RBI double in the fifth capped a four-run inning that busted the game wide open for Louisville.

After struggling to find the zone against the Wildcats in the first Battle of the Bluegrass game, Louisville’s pitching had no trouble with the UK offense on Tuesday.

Freshman lefty Reid Detmers (2-0) picked up the win for the Cards, allowing just one run on three hits while striking out five with some beautifully nasty stuff over 4 ²⁄₃ innings. The wonderfully named Shay Smiddy allowed no hits and struck out three over the next 2 1/3. Closer Sam Bordner worked a perfect ninth inning to secure Louisville’s ninth win in its last 11 games against Kentucky.

It’s always nice to beat down Kentucky, but this is also a monster resume win for a Louisville that appears to be hitting its stride at the perfect time. The Cards have won five straight and are coming off a three-game road sweep of Virginia Tech that got them back to 9-9 in the ACC.

Dan McDonnell’s team will look to built on that momentum this weekend when it hosts Virginia for another monster three-game set.