Louisville baseball blasts Kentucky, 12-5

For much of the 2021 season, the third-ranked Louisville baseball team has struggled mightily in midweek contests. This was not the case Tuesday night in Lexington.

The Cardinals scored five runs in the top of the first inning and never looked back on their way to a 12-5 rout of Kentucky. The win was Louisville’s 12th in its last 15 games against their arch-rivals.

The triumph was also sweet revenge for a U of L team that fell at home to the Wildcats by a score of 11-7 back on April 6.

Louisville scored the first 11 runs of Tuesday night’s game, the final two of those coming on a blast to straight away center field off the bat of Dalton Rushing.

Rushing, who has now homered in three consecutive games, was one of three Cardinals to finish the night with a trio of hits. Red hot Alex Binelas went 3-for-5 with three runs driven in, and second baseman Cooper Bowman was 3-for-4 with a pair of runs scored.

A total of nine Louisville pitchers combined to limit the Kentucky offense to just seven total hits.

On the flip side, this was the 20th time in 34 games that the Louisville offense has produced double-digit hits, and the 27th time the Cards have tallied at least one home run. U of L currently leads the ACC in batting average, runs, hits, triples, RBIs, total bases, slugging percentage, on-base percentage and stolen bases.

Louisville returns to the diamond on Friday for the first of a three-game ACC set against visiting Pittsburgh. First pitch is scheduled for 3 p.m.