Aquino's Grand Slam Sinks Manatees

Blake Allemand
Blake Allemand
Aristides Aquino’s grand slam in the sixth inning of Sunday’s game, propelled the Daytona Tortugas to a 9-3 win over the Brevard County Manatees in the front-end of a home-at-home series at Space Coast Stadium.

It was not a good night for Manatees starter Javi Salas, who suffered his third loss since coming back to the Manatees. He gave up four runs in four innings, including walking two and throwing two wild pitches in the first inning. The second of those wild pitches allowed Shed Long to come home with the first run of the game.

Salas ended up walking four and striking out four, to go along with the four walks and four hits. He threw 67 pitches, 36 for strikes.

The second inning about summed up the tough luck season for the Manatees. Garrett Boulware singled and went to second on a Ty Washington ground out. Avain Rachal then grounded out for the second out of the inning. Jonathan Reynoso singled on a ball that hit the base umpire. Reynoso was safe and Boulware went to third. Instead of the Manatees being out of the inning, Daytona was given an extra out.

Blake Trahan walked loading the bases and that brought Long to the plate. He proceeded to drill a ball over David Denson’s head in left, clearing the bases.

“That was a tough one, we would’ve been out of that second inning,” said Manatees manager Joe Ayrault. “Slow ground ball the umpire couldn’t get out of the way, then the triple later.”

Brevard County (23-46, 37-81) got a run back in the third inning against Daytona starter Tejay Antone. Corey Ray dropped a double just inside the left field line and scored on Mitch Ghelfi’s RBI
Mitch Ghelfi
Mitch Ghelfi
single. In the bottom of the fourth, Wendell Rijo doubled and later scored and a Jose Cuas double, closing the gap to 4-2. Cuas was out at third, trying to stretch it. It was a close play, but the out call was made.

Daytona (37-33, 65-52) got a run in the fifth against Manatees reliever Marcos Diplan. Yorman Rodriguez singled, but injured himself running to first. He was replaced by Brian O’Grady. He came home two batters later on a Boulware single.

Brevard County got that run back in the bottom of the fifth, after three straight singles from Ghelfi, Blake Allemand and Elvis Rubio, making it a 5-3 game. That was as close as the Manatees would get, as Aquino put the game out of reach in the top of the sixth.

Rachal singled to lead off the frame and Reynoso and Trahan followed with bunt singles. Diplan then battled back to get Long on strikes and O’Grady to pop out. He was one pitch from getting out of the inning. Aquino had other plans. He belted a no-doubter over the left field wall and just like that, it was a 9-3 game.

“Diplan did a great job with the bases loaded, ended up getting two outs,” said Ayrault. “Then I believe it was a 1-2 breaking ball that Aquino hit. That Aquino is a special player, that kids’ got power and an unbelievable arm and he can swing the bat real well.”

For more info: Daytona @ Brevard County boxscore

The Manatees out hit Daytona 12-11, With Allemand going 3-for-4. “He’s been swinging the bat really well,” Ayrault said. “With guys going up and some guys going down, he’s moved to the top of the order and he’s swinging a hot bat right now.”
Ghelfi went 2-for-5 with an RBI and a run scored and Rubio had two hits, as did Rijo.

Injury update: Third baseman George Iskenderian, who last played on August 9 at Lakeland has been dealing with a left wrist injury and is currently day-to-day, according to Ayrault.

The Manatees hit the road Monday, as they visit Daytona to finish the short two-game series. Jon Perrin (2-7, 2.65 ERA) will pitch for Brevard County. The game is scheduled to get underway at 7:05 p.m.

This article originally appeared on 27OutsBaseball.com on 8/14/16


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

FIT Men Push Win Streak to Five

Image
Patrick Anderson - Photo credit: James Ragan Photography The Florida Tech Men’s Basketball team beat Nova Southeastern Saturday, 98-90 and in the process won their fifth straight game and have now won seven out of eight, after two straight losses to start the season. The first half was a back-and-forth affair with Jordan Majors and Patrick Anderson dropping in 12 points apiece. Majors was 4-of-5 from three-point range and Anderson was 2-of-5, leading the Panthers to an 11-of-18 first half, from beyond the arc. “The difference in the game was clearly in two areas,” said Panthers head coach Billy Mims in his postgame interview with Jim Mitchell. “We made 14 threes’ in the game and we’re shooting the ball as well as anybody in the conference,” he said. “We shot 41 percent behind the arc and when you shoot like that, it’s hard to lose games. The other thing that stood out was how well we passed the basketball, talk about a team effort, we had 26 assists and only 13 tur...
Read more

FIT Women Lose Key Game at Lynn

Image
Gracie Doane - Photo credit: James Ragan Photography The Florida Tech women’s basketball team were doomed by a poor third quarter Friday night that saw the Lynn Fighting Knights outscore the Panthers 22-11, en route to a 71-61 Sunshine State Conference victory. The loss was the fourth in a row for Florida Tech. The Panthers troubles started early when leading scorer Shequana Harris was called for a foul two seconds into the contest. She picked up a second foul early and her third, just as the third quarter got underway. When all was said, and done, Harris played three minutes and scored two points. Florida Tech (6-6, 2-4 SSC) held their own early without her, leading 13-12 with 1:23 left in the first quarter, thanks to a layup by Gudlau Juliusdottir before Lynn overtook them, scoring five straight points and leading 17-13 at the end of the first quarter. Lynn (7-4, 2-3 SSC) extended their lead to 23-15 early in the second quarter and were up 27-19 before Gracie D...
Read more

Florida Tech Falls Late Against Adelphi

Image
The Florida Tech Panthers lacrosse team put up a great effort against the ninth ranked Adelphi Panthers on Thursday, losing 10-8 in a tightly contested game. Florida Tech goaltender Daniel Flock stood tall, against a highly skilled Adelphi squad, coming up with nine saves. The Panthers of Florida Tech scored six unanswered goals at one point, turning a 5-2 deficit into an 8-5 lead, but Adelphi scored five straight from about the halfway point of the fourth, to the end of the game and escaped with a victory. Florida Tech (1-1) did a lot of things right on Thursday statistically, winning in shots 37-29 and ground balls 37-31. They were 2-for-5 on the man-up, while AU was 1-for-3 and FIT was successful on 19 of their 20 clear attempts. Unfortunately, they did not win on the scoreboard and that’s the only number that counts. Adelphi (1-0) was led by Nick Racalbuto, who had four goals and Michael Osmundsen who had three, to go along with one assist. The other Racalbuto in ...
Read more