MLN Newswire - www.mlntherawfeed.com-METAIRIE, La. – The Nashville Sounds wrapped up their 2009 season on a positive note, posting an 8-3 victory over the New Orleans Zephyrs on Monday afternoon at Zephyr Field. 

With the victory, Nashville (75-69) gained a split of the four-game set and earned a 9-7 win in the season series against the Z’s. The Sounds wrapped up the 21st winning season in the franchise’s 32 years of existence. 

Starting pitcher Mike Burns (8-3) worked a complete game to earn the victory for the Sounds, notching his team-leading tenth quality start of the year. The right-hander allowed three runs (two earned) on 10 hits and racked up a season-high eight strikeouts in the effort, Nashville’s first nine-inning complete game all season. Burns tossed 98 pitches in the victory.
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Every Sounds starter, including Burns (2-for-5), recorded a hit in the contest during Nashville’s 17-hit output, two shy of the club’s best effort of the year. Center fielder Tike Redman and first baseman Joe Koshansky led Nashville with three-hit afternoons. 

The damage could have been worse for New Orleans, but the Sounds grounded into two bases-loaded, inning-ending double plays in the game. 

Corey Hart wrapped up his rehabilitation stint with a 2-for-3 afternoon for the Sounds, playing the entire contest in right field. He singled in the first and eighth innings, struck out in the third, was hit by a pitch in the sixth, and drew a four-pitch walk in the seventh, scoring a pair of runs in the contest. In four games with Nashville, Hart batted .500 (5-for-10) with two walks and was hit by a pitch on two occasions. 

Brendan Katin got the scoring started when he continued his recent surge by belting his team-leading 24th home run of the year in the top of the second inning, a two-out solo shot just inside the left field foul pole off Zephyrs starter John Koronka. 

The 24 home runs match Katin’s career high, set in 2007 with Double-A Huntsville. The longball marked the fourth straight at-bat in which the slugger went deep, dating back to Saturday’s contest. 

New Orleans tied the contest in the fourth when Michael Ryan reached when Katin failed to glove his fly ball to left but he was given a double on the play, allowing the outfielder to finish the year with a .300 average. Lee Mitchell followed with an RBI single down the right field line off Burns to plate Ryan and make it a 1-1 game. 

Zephyrs center fielder Jai Miller put the home team in front by a 3-1 count in the bottom of the fifth with a two-run homer to center off Burns, his 16th roundtripper of the year. Emilio Ontiveros, who reached earlier in the frame when Sounds shortstop Johnny Raburn mishandled his grounder, also scored on the blast. 

Nashville got a run back in the top of the sixth in a strange inning at the plate for the visitors. After Hart was hit by a pitch to start the frame, Koshansky hit a ball up the middle that caromed off Koronka’s foot for a single then Adam Heether lifted a fly ball to center that Miller lost in the sun, resulting in an RBI single and a 3-2 score. 

The visitors vaulted out to a 7-3 lead an inning later with a five-run seventh against Zephyrs reliever Willie Collazo in the left-hander’s lone inning of action. Koshansky’s 24th home run of the year, an opposite-field three-run shot to left, highlighted the scoring. 

Hart upped the Nashville lead to 8-3 in the eighth with a one-out RBI single to left that plated Burns. 

Collazo (9-5) was saddled with the loss after surrendering five runs on four hits in his lone frame of action.

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