FORT MYERS \u2013\u00a0The Fort Myers Mighty Mussels shutout the Flying Tigers in the series finale by a score of 5-0 Sunday afternoon at the Lee Health Sports Complex.<\/p>\n
Sunday was the fourth time Fort Myers\u2019 (9-6) pitching has blanked a team this season, the best mark in all of Minor League Baseball. Mussels\u2019 pitching leads all of affiliated baseball with a 2.32 ERA.<\/p>\n
Fort Myers sent Double-A rehabber\u00a0Jose Olivares\u00a0to the mound for the last game of the series, and he impressed. Olivares faced the minimum over three scoreless innings, striking out four Flying Tigers (10-5). He touched 96 mph with his fastball in his first rehab start.<\/p>\n
The Mussels got on the board in the bottom of the first inning after\u00a0Dameury Pena\u00a0doubled to lead off the inning. He would later come in to score on a balk by Lakeland starter Ali Tanner (1-2).<\/p>\n
For Pena, his first inning double marked his 10th game in a row with a hit, and 12th game in a row getting on base.<\/p>\n
The Mussels struck again in the second inning, as Pena hit a two-run single with the bases loaded to score both\u00a0Jayson Bass\u00a0and\u00a0Ramiro Dominguez. After two innings, Fort Myers led by three.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The multi-hit game was Pena\u2019s sixth of the season. He continues to pace the Florida State League in average (.429) and OBP (.529).\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the bottom of the third inning,\u00a0Irvin Nunez\u00a0led off by reaching on a two-base throwing error by shortstop Jack Goodman. The next batter,\u00a0Eduardo Beltre, would bring him in on an RBI single to make it a 4-0 ballgame.<\/p>\n
Kolten Smith\u00a0(2-1) relieved Olivares, and was solid over two scoreless innings, striking out five Flying Tigers while allowing two baserunners.<\/p>\n
In the sixth inning, the Mussels would turn to\u00a0Matthew DesMartes, making his professional debut after being added to the active roster on Saturday. He would finish his outing with two scoreless innings, striking out two. DesMartes loaded up the bases in the sixth inning but did not allow a run.<\/p>\n
The Mussels\u2019 offense got back to work in the bottom of the sixth inning, as\u00a0Byron Chourio\u00a0punctuated a two-out rally by driving in Dominguez to make it 5-0.<\/p>\n
Eric Hammond\u00a0came on in the eighth to work the final two innings of Sunday\u2019s win, closing out the shutout. Hammond struck out two and faced just seven batters to get through the two frames.<\/p>\n
Fort Myers pitching struck out 13 Flying Tigers in the series finale against the defending FSL Champions.<\/p>\n
The Mighty Mussels begin a six-game series against the Dunedin Blue Jays Tuesday, April 21. First pitch is scheduled for 7:05 p.m. with coverage beginning at 6:40 p.m. on the Mighty Mussels Baseball Network.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mercedes homers but Fort Myers falls to Lakeland for second night in a row<\/p>\n
FORT MYERS \u2013\u00a0The Fort Myers Mighty Mussels dropped their second game in a row to the Lakeland Flying Tigers by a 9-2 score Saturday night at the Lee Health Sports Complex.<\/p>\n
The Mussels (8-6) added RHP\u00a0Matthew Dalquist\u00a0(0-1) to the active roster prior to today\u2019s game, and sent him to the mound for his first professional start.<\/p>\n
After navigating two scoreless frames, Lakeland (10-4) broke through in the third inning. Dalquist got the first two hitters out on two pitches, but Double-A rehabber Thayron Liranzo ignited a two-out rally with a line-drive single to right field.<\/p>\n
The next batter was Zach MacDonald, who smoked an RBI triple in the right-center field gap to put the Flying Tigers on the board. Jesus Pinto followed up with an RBI double in a similar spot, and Carson Rucker added an RBI single as well. In the end, three runs on four consecutive hits allowed Lakeland to move in front, 3-0.<\/p>\n
Fort Myers got two hits in the next inning but failed to score. Among those two hits was a single from\u00a0Dameury Pena. The knock extended Pena\u2019s hitting streak to nine games and he has reached base safely in all 11 games he\u2019s played in.<\/p>\n
In the fourth inning, Lakeland added a run on another two-out RBI hit, courtesy of Bryce Rainer, this time to make it 4-0. Dalquist\u2019s night would end after 4.2 innings, giving up nine hits, scattering four strikeouts and not issuing a walk.<\/p>\n
Dalquist would give way to\u00a0Adam Falinski\u00a0in the fifth inning, who gave up two baserunners but held Lakeland off the board, keeping the Mussels\u2019 deficit at four.<\/p>\n
In the top of the sixth inning, Anibal Salas led off the inning by reaching on an error. He would later come around to score on a wild pitch by Falinski. MacDonald drove in a run to strengthen the Flying Tigers\u2019 lead to 6-0.<\/p>\n
Pena led off the sixth inning with a single off of new Lakeland pitcher Pedro Garcia, who replaced Luke Hoskins (1-0). For Pena, it was his team-leading fifth multi-hit game of the season.<\/p>\n
The next batter was\u00a0Yasser Mercedes, who blasted a home run at 104.3 mph off the bat for his second home run of the series to get Fort Myers on the board, 6-2.<\/p>\n
Major League rehabber\u00a0Travis Adams\u00a0made his second appearance of the series for Fort Myers. Adams struck out the leadoff hitter on his way to a 1-2-3 inning; he has now retired all six batters he has faced during his assignment.<\/p>\n
Lakeland added three unearned runs against\u00a0Mike McKenna\u00a0in the top of the ninth inning to make the score 9-2. Only four of Lakeland\u2019s runs were earned against Mussels\u2019 pitching.<\/p>\n
The Flying Tigers would close out the Mussels in the bottom of the ninth as Fort Myers dropped their second game in a row.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT MYERS \u2013\u00a0The Fort Myers Mighty Mussels shutout the Flying Tigers in the series finale by a score…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":125582,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210],"class_list":["post-238996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}