St. Lucie hurlers dominate Manatees at Vero Beach

Omar Garcia
Omar Garcia
The Brevard County Manatees and St. Lucie Mets played in the third annual Jackie Robinson Celebration game on Friday. Three Mets’ pitchers combined to strike out 16 Brevard County Manatees on the night, leading the visitors to a 4-0 win at Holman Field in Vero Beach. 

Eight out of nine Manatees' starters struck out at least once. The only Brevard County player to escape without a strikeout was Omar Garcia in the nine hole. St. Lucie starter Corey Oswalt (1-0) had nine punch outs over his six innings of work and allowed the only four hits the Manatees would muster all night. The only extra base hit came off the bat of Angel Ortega, a double in the third inning. 

Kevin McGowan struck out five in his 2.1 innings of work and MLB-rehabber Josh Edgin struck out the only two batters he faced. The Mets struck out six straight Brevard hitters bridging the seventh and eighth innings.

The game was much closer than the score would indicate, with the difference being a forgettable fourth inning in the field for Brevard County. After Manatees’ starter Eric Hanhold got Luis Guillorme to ground out, 

Amed Rosario reached on a ball that shortstop Ortega fielded, but couldn’t make a clean throw to first. They officially scored it an error but it would have been tough for the play to be made on either end. Michael Katz singled to put runners at first and second. John Mora grounded into a fielder's choice. Katz was out, but Rosario moved to third and Mora was safe at first. He would steal second a couple pitches later and that set things into motion.

With Tomas Nido batting, Brevard County catcher Dustin Houle faked a throw to second and threw to third. The ball went over Jose Cuas’ head at third and down the left field line. Rosario scored and as the throw came in from left field, Houle couldn’t corral it, allowing Mora to score and giving St. Lucie a 2-0 lead. 

Nido ended his at bat with a single, but Hanhold came back to strike out the next hitter, ending the inning. Hanhold (0-1) was saddled with the loss, despite not giving up an earned run. He was pulled after giving up a ground-rule double to Mora with two outs in the sixth. He allowed five hits, struck out three and walked one on 74 pitches, 46 of those for strikes.

The Mets (6-3) added a run in the seventh on a sacrifice fly by Patrick Biondi, against reliever Jon Olczak. The final St. Lucie run came in the ninth on a solo homer by Jhoan Urena. It was his first Florida State League long ball and it came against Josh Uhen, who was making his third appearance of the season for the Manatees.

For more info: St. Lucie @ Brevard County boxscore


Game two of this series will take place Saturday at Space Coast Stadium. Bubba Derby (1-0, 0.00 ERA) is scheduled to start for Brevard County, while the Mets will counter with Ricky Knapp (1-0, 0.00). Game time is 6:35 p.m.

Story originally appeared on the now defunct Examiner.com on 4/15/16

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