Bickford’s Outing Leads Manatees to Victory

Phil Bickford
Phil Bickford
For the second straight night, the Brevard County Manatees used a four-run inning to pull ahead and eventually beat the visiting Daytona Tortugas, 5-3. A crowd of 2,530 witnessed the Manatees 40th win of the season.

Manatees starter Phil Bickford gave up a two out, two-run homer to Aristides Aquino in the top of the first, but settled down nicely and gave his team 6.1 innings of quality baseball, giving up four hits, three runs (two earned) and walking two. He struck out six, throwing 61 of his 95 pitches for strikes.

Brevard County (40-96, 17-51) got one run back in the bottom of the first when leadoff man Trey York started things with a triple and came home on a Mitch Ghelfi ground out. Daytona starter Jose Lopez retired the next two batters, limiting the damage.

Daytona threatened a couple times, leaving runners at third in the third and the fifth inning, but each time Bickford got out of trouble. Those stops would prove big, because the Manatees did most of their damage in the bottom of the sixth, with York kick starting the offense again.

York singled and went to second after Ghelfi was hit by a pitch. Blake Allemand then struck with an RBI double, tying things up at 2-2. Ghelfi went to third on the hit. One out later, Wendell Rijo lined a ball to center, scoring Ghelfi and Allemand, giving the Manatees a 4-1 lead.

Alex Powers was called on from the Daytona bullpen and after giving up a single to Dustin Houle, Jose Cuas laid down a successful sacrifice bunt, plating Rijo and giving the Manatees a 5-1 lead. Daytona finally got on the board in the seventh, as Bickford was running out of gas.

After getting the first out of the inning, Bickford gave up back-to-back singles to Reydel Medina and Garrett Boulware.

After Blake Butler was plunked, the bases were loaded and Bickford was lifted in favor of Brad Kuntz. 

After striking out Jonathan Reynoso, Kuntz got Blake Trahan to ground to third. Allemand booted it, allowing Medina to score the second Daytona run.

The Manatees looked primed to put an insurance run on the board in the eighth, against reliever Michael Sullivan. Rijo and Houle walked, before Jose Cuas struck out. With Brandon Diaz batting, Brevard County pulled off the successful double steal, but as they did that, Diaz went down on strikes. Sullivan completed the inning by getting Malik Collymore swinging, striking out the side.

Jon Olczak came on for his second straight save and he was successful in doing so, despite giving up a leadoff single to Medina. He came back to get the next three batters and clamped down his 10th save of the season. It was the first time the Manatees won back-to-back games since they beat Clearwater July 31 and August 1.

For more info: Daytona @ Brevard County boxscore

Trey York
Trey York 
The home nine only had five hits, as did Daytona. York led the Manatees with two hits, a walk and two runs scored. Medina was the only Tortugas batter with two hits. Brevard County finished the night 2-for-12 with runners in scoring position and left seven on base. Daytona was 0-for-6 and left six.

Sunday is not only the series finale, not only the season finale, but for the Manatees, it is the franchise finale. The Manatees will look for a third straight win to end their 23-year stay in Viera, before moving to Kissimmee in 2017.

Roster moves: Corey Ray was not in the Manatees lineup Saturday, as he was sent to Low-A Wisconsin, to presumably help the squad in their playoff push. He has been hitting well of late for Brevard County and we wish him the best of luck.


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