FORT MYERS \u2013\u00a0The Fort Myers Mighty Mussels shut out the Dunedin Blue Jays by a score of 2-0 Wednesday night at the Lee Health Sports Complex.<\/p>\n
The victory marks the fifth time the Mussels (10-7) have recorded a shutout this season, which paces all of Minor League Baseball. Fort Myers continues to stretch its lead in ERA, with the team total down to 2.10, more than half a run better than the second ranked team.<\/p>\n
The Gwinnett Stripers (ATL, Triple-A) have a 2.77 ERA and the closest Single-A team is the Palm Beach Cardinals (STL) at 2.86.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fort Myers sent Minnesota Twins No. 11 prospect\u00a0Riley Quick\u00a0to the mound for his third start of the season. Quick allowed a leadoff infield single to Blue Jays No. 2 prospect JoJo Parker, then retired the next three batters to end the top of the first inning.<\/p>\n
Dunedin (9-8) sent MLB rehabber Jose Berr\u00edos to the mound for his second start of his assignment with the Single-A affiliate of the Blue Jays. Berr\u00edos, the former Twin, made 16 starts for Fort Myers back in 2014. He had a 1.93 ERA across 96.1 innings that year.<\/p>\n
Berr\u00edos allowed a leadoff hit to\u00a0Dameury Pena\u00a0in the first inning, then struck out the next three he faced.<\/p>\n
Twins No. 14 prospect\u00a0Quentin Young\u00a0also got to Berr\u00edos with a leadoff single in the second, but again, the two-time MLB All-Star worked around it, keeping the game scoreless after two innings.<\/p>\n
In the third inning, Quick faced the minimum for the second consecutive frame. His night ended by retiring the final nine Blue Jays he faced. Quick struck out four and kept his professional ERA at 0.00 across eight innings. He topped out at 97.9 mph on his fastball and threw 12 of his 36 pitches over 96 mph.<\/p>\n
Berr\u00edos lasted four innings, giving up three hits and striking out five. The Mussels had three leadoff hits against him, but could not break through.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Merit Jones\u00a0relieved Quick in the fourth inning, and retired the first five he faced into the fifth inning, before Yorman Licourt drew a two-out walk.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Up until that point, Fort Myers\u2019 pitching had retired 14 consecutive hitters following Parker\u2019s leadoff single in the first inning.<\/p>\n
Will Cresswell followed Licourt with a bloop single into shallow right field, then Raimundo De Los Santos walked, loading the bases with two outs. Jones made a good pitch to Parker to get him to roll over to second base, and the side was retired in the top of the fifth inning.<\/p>\n
A similar spot arose for Jones in the sixth inning and he came through with a similar result. Dunedin loaded the bases with one out, but Jones buckled down by striking out a pair of Blue Jays to retire the side.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jones stranded two more in the sixth inning and got one out in the seventh before he departed.\u00a0Adam Falinski\u00a0(1-0) stranded the pair of inherited runners.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jones\u2019 final line was 3.1 innings, three hits, and three walks with seven strikeouts in a scoreless appearance.<\/p>\n
Still scoreless in the bottom of the seventh inning, Fort Myers loaded up the bases on two walks and a hit by pitch by Lluveres Severino (0-1). Two batters later, Pena came through again with a two-run single down the right field line to put the Mighty Mussels in front.<\/p>\n
Pena\u2019s go-ahead single marked his seventh multi-hit game in 14 contests. He continues to lead the FSL with a .400 batting average.<\/p>\n
Falinski did not allow a baserunner, retiring the final eight batters of the game to secure a win for Fort Myers to even the series 1-1.<\/p>\n
Fort Myers\u2019 pitching has walked the tight rope in the first two games of this series, leaving a staggering 19 Blue Jays on the bases through 18 innings. They have held Dunedin to 2-for-19 with RISP.<\/p>\n
The series continues today, April 23. The Mighty Mussels will send\u00a0Matthew Dalquist\u00a0(0-1, 7.71) to the mound, opposite reigning FSL Pitcher of the Week Nolan Perry (0-0, 1.38). 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","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT MYERS \u2013\u00a0The Fort Myers Mighty Mussels shut out the Dunedin Blue Jays by a score of 2-0…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217998,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210],"class_list":["post-243395","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\/243395","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=243395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}