Bowling Green Hot Rods short stop Brayden Taylor (20) bats in the Hot Rods’ 3-2 win over the Emperors at the Bowling Green Ballpark on Wednesday, June 12, 2024. (Grace Ramey McDowell/grace.ramey@bgdailynews.com)

Brayden Taylor collected two hits including a solo homer in the Bowling Green Hot Rods’ 6-4 win over the Rome Emperors on Saturday at Bowling Green Ballpark.

Bowling Green (34-28) scratched across a run in the bottom of the second inning against Rome starter Jhancarlos Lara. Brock Jones singled, stole second and moved up to third on a groundout. Ricardo Genoves smacked a sacrifice fly to score Jones and make it 1-0. 

In the bottom of the third, the Hot Rods plated two runs against Lara. Taylor put Bowling Green up 2-0 with a solo homer to right-center field. Cooper Kinney was hit by a pitch and moved to second on a wild pitch. Tatem Levins singled, scoring Kinney to increase the lead to 3-0.

The Hot Rods poured it on against Lara in the bottom of the fourth. Genoves doubled and came around to score on a base hit by Taylor to make it 4-0.

Rome (33-27) cut the deficit to two against Bowling Green starter Trevor Martin. Stephen Paolini drove in a run with a sacrifice fly in the top of the fifth, while Ethan Workinger made it a 4-2 game with an RBI single in the top of the sixth.

Bowling Green increased the lead in the bottom of the eighth off Rome reliever Rob Griswold. Hunter Haas singled and Genoves reached on an error to put runners on second and first. Ryan Spikes tallied a single to right, scoring Haas from second to make it 5-2. Genoves moved up to third on the Spikes base hit and scored due to a throwing error to tack on another run.

E.J. Expositio hit a two-run homer off Hot Rods reliever Sean Harney in the top of the ninth, but Harney recorded the next three outs in a row to end the game, 6-4.

Martin (5-2) earned the win, allowing two runs on four hits, a walk and four strikeouts over six innings. Lara (0-1) took the loss, surrendering four runs on six hits, a walk and seven strikeouts over four frames.

The Hot Rods and Emperors play the finale of a six-game series on Sunday with first pitch set for 1:05 p.m. Bowling Green starts right-hander Yoniel Curet (2-7, 5.16), while righty Blake Burkhalter (0-1, 4.82) draws the start for Rome.