Aug 22, 2025 4 min read

The Wild Things’ frustration with its maddening losing streak, and some power hitting by the middle of Evansville’s batting order, could be measured by the velocity of a Kobe Foster fastball that plunked the Otters’ Stephen Paolini during the third inning Thursday night.

The pitch came after Evansville hit back-to-back home runs and triggered a benches-clearing incident, two ejections, a protest of the game by Evansville, some quality relief work by both teams and eventually a tiebreaker inning.

In the end, far removed from the early chaos, the result looked so much like it did for the past week – with a Washington loss.

Evansville’s JJ Cruz hit a groundball-double over the first base bag off his former college teammate Hector Garcia in the 10th inning, scoring tiebreaker runner Keenan Taylor, and sent the Otters to a 7-6 win over the slumping Wild Things.

Washington had a chance to win in the bottom of the 10th and had the potential tying run at third base with no outs but failed to score. Evansville’s Nick McAuliffe, the sixth Otters pitcher of the night, got two strikeouts and a grounder to shortstop to end the game.

Evansville extended its winning streak to eight games – one shy of the franchise record – and sent Washington to its seventh consecutive defeat, its longest losing streak since dropping the final seven games of the 2013 season and the first three of 2014.

It also sets up a huge weekend series at EQT Park against the Mississippi Mud Monsters, the team Washington is battling for the final wild-card spot in the Midwest Conference. Mississippi won 3-2 at Florence to pull within three games of Washington with nine remaining.

The game started well for Washington as first baseman Andrew Czech hit a three-run homer off Evansville starter Ryan Wiltse in the first inning to give the Wild Things a 3-1 lead.

Evansville got a leadoff homer from Paolini in the second, then forged a 5-3 lead in the third when LJ Jones hit a two-run homer and Taylor followed with a solo shot.

That brought up Paolini and he was hit by Foster’s first pitch of the at-bat. Home plate umpire Jimmy Sapp immediately ejected Foster as Paolini took exception to being hit. Both benches emptied, though no punches were thrown.

After order was restored, Washington replaced Foster with Dylan Kirkeby, who would be making only his second relief appearance of the season. As Kirkeby finished his extended warmup tosses and play was ready to resume, Evansville manager Andy McCauley was ejected. It was McCauley’s second ejection of the series.

The Otters then protested the game at that point.

Washington tied the score at 5-5 in the fourth as a sacrifice fly by Cole Fowler scored Czech and an RBI single by Three Hillier drove home Wagner Lagrange.

The game then turned into a battle of the bullpens. Kirkeby threw 3 1/3 scoreless innings and Chad Coles followed with two shutout innings for Washington.

Evansville took a 6-5 lead in the top of the ninth against Garcia (3-3). With Darryl Jackson at second base and two outs, Washington chose to intentionally walk JT Benson and pitch to Jones. For the second consecutive night, Jones singled home what appeared to be the game-winning run immediately after an intentional walk.

Washington, however, forced the tiebreaker inning after being down to its final out. With two outs and nobody on base in the ninth, Ben Watson singled through the left side of the infield off reliever Alex Valdez (4-7). Jeff Liquori was then called upon to pinch-hit and he smacked an RBI double to the wall in right centerfield.

In the 10th, Evansville bunted Taylor, the tiebreaker runner to third base, and Cruz followed with a double over the first-base bag, just inside the foul line. Cruz and Garcia were teammates in 2023 at Hope International, an NAIA school in California.

In the bottom of the 10th, Tyreque Reed led off with a solid single to left field and Caufield, the tiebreaker runner, advanced to third base. McAuliffe, who notched his third save, struck out Czech and Lagrange, then induced a game-ending grounder by Fowler.

Extra bases

Jones had four RBI in the game and nine in the series. … Czech’s home run was his 23rd of the season and 85th of his career, moving him into fourth place on the Frontier League’s all-time list. … It was the first time this season that Washington lost an extra-innings game at home.