Jayson Bass slugged two home runs in the Mussels’ loss Wednesday night.<\/p>\n
PHOTO PROVIDED<\/p>\n
FORT MYERS \u2013\u00a0Jayson Bass connected on a pair of home runs as the Fort Myers Mighty Mussels recorded an extra-base hit for their 33rd consecutive game, setting a modern franchise record, in their 6-5 loss to the Bradenton Marauders Wednesday night at Lee Health Sports Complex.<\/p>\n
Trailing 1-0 in the bottom of the third,\u00a0Bass\u00a0blasted a solo home run to right field, making it 33 consecutive games with an extra-base hit for the offense, a new Mussels\u2019 era record (since 2020) that passed the mark set by the 2024 team. Fort Myers has totaled 102 XBH during the streak and trails just Dunedin (35 games) for the longest streak in the Florida State League this season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The longest streaks in all-time franchise history are 42 (2013) 51 (2016) and 63 (also 2013) which were set during the Miracle era that featured a High-A roster.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bass would homer again in the seventh, giving him 12 on the season and tying him with\u00a0Kala\u2019i Rosario\u00a0for the third most in a single season of the Mussels\u2019 era. It was his second game-tying homer of the night, leveling the score 5-5.<\/p>\n
Fort Myers (45-36, 8-8) sent\u00a0Jason Reitz\u00a0to the mound to make his seventh start of the season. Reitz fanned three Marauders (39-43, 8-9) over his first two frames.<\/p>\n
In the top of the third, Bradenton struck first on an RBI single from Edgleen Perez, but Bass threw out the second runner trying to score on the play.<\/p>\n
Reitz exited after 3.1 innings, throwing 32 of his 52 pitches for strikes while allowing one run on three hits.\u00a0Dylan Questad\u00a0entered and promptly walked a batter and allowed a go-ahead double to Richard Ramirez, putting Bradenton back in front 2-1.\u00a0Merphy Hernandez\u00a0threw out a run on a fly-out double play to end the inning, marking the second straight inning with an outfield assist at the plate for the Mussels\u2019 defense.\u00a0<\/p>\n
With two outs in the fifth,\u00a0Byron Chourio\u00a0crushed a solo home run to right, leveling the score 2-2. After a walk to\u00a0Ricardo Pena,\u00a0Hernandez tripled to right center to give Fort Myers a 3-2 lead.\u00a0Miguel Briceno\u00a0followed with an opposite field single, moving the lead to 4-2.<\/p>\n
Billy Oldham\u00a0took over in the fifth, making his FSL debut after signing with the Twins in 2024. The righty missed substantial time with an injury and had been on the Mussels\u2019 injured list since the start of the 2025 season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Oldham allowed a double to Johan De Los Santos, who later scored on a wild pitch.<\/p>\n
Adam Falinski\u00a0returned to the mound in Fort Myers after being transferred from Cedar Rapids on Monday. Falinski allowed a double to lead off the sixth but held the 4-3 lead.<\/p>\n
In the top of the seventh, the first two Marauders reached on a bunt single and a throwing error by\u00a0Miguel Briceno. With runners at second and third, the game entered a weather delay at 9:06 p.m.<\/p>\n
After a one-hour, four-minute rain delay, the teams resumed play.\u00a0Mike McKenna\u00a0(5-4) entered, inheriting Falinski\u2019s two runners. High-A rehabber Jared Jones pulled a go-ahead, two-run single to put Bradenton on top 5-4.<\/p>\n
Bass\u2019 leadoff home run in the bottom of the seventh tied the game up.<\/p>\n
Facing McKenna in the eighth, Ramirez connected on his second home run of the series to put the Marauders ahead 6-5. For Ramirez, it was his fifth extra-base hit in his first nine at-bats of the series.<\/p>\n
Michael Hilker Jr.\u00a0worked around a leadoff single to strand a runner in scoring position in the ninth.<\/p>\n
Bass\u2019 bid for his third home run of the night fell just short, getting caught on the far edge of the warning track, and Fort Myers dropped its fourth consecutive game.<\/p>\n
The Mussels bounced into four double plays in the game, two of which were inning ending.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The series continues today, July 9. Fort Myers sends\u00a0Reed Moring\u00a0(2.68) to the mound, Bradenton counters with Yonleg Gaetano (4.66). First pitch is scheduled for 7:05 p.m. with coverage beginning at 6:40 p.m. on the Mighty Mussels Baseball Network.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jayson Bass slugged two home runs in the Mussels’ loss Wednesday night. PHOTO PROVIDED FORT MYERS \u2013\u00a0Jayson Bass…\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-335019","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\/335019","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=335019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335019\/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=335019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}