Irvin Nunez drove in six runs in the 24-8 win.<\/p>\n
PHOTO PROVIDED<\/p>\n
PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. \u00a0\u2013 The Fort Myers Mighty Mussels were defeated by the St. Lucie Mets by a score of 8-2 Tuesday night at Clover Park.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Irvin Nunez\u00a0connected on a pair of doubles late in the game, but the Mighty Mussels (47-42, 10-13) never recovered from an early deficit.\u00a0<\/p>\n
St. Lucie (42-47, 9-14) opened the scoring with a successful double steal in the second inning. The Mets then exploded for four more runs in the third off of Mussels\u2019 starter\u00a0Eric Hammond\u00a0(0-3),\u00a0taking a 5-0 lead. A two-run double from Trey Snyder was the big swing in a frame that saw nine Mets come to the plate. Hammond exited after 2.2 innings and threw just 26 of his 55 pitches for strikes.\u00a0Nick McAuliffe\u00a0recorded the final out in the frame, while allowing the inherited runner to score. Four of the five runs against Hammond were earned.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Mussels threatened in the first two frames but left a pair of base runners aboard in each inning. St. Lucie pitching went on a run, retiring 11 consecutive batters from the end of the second through the middle of the fifth when\u00a0Ramiro Dominguez\u00a0drew a two-out walk.\u00a0<\/p>\n
McAuliffe exited after 1.1 innings, throwing 15 of his 26 pitches for strikes.\u00a0Dylan Questad\u00a0took over in the fifth. The Mets added a run on a sacrifice fly from Antonio Jimenez, extending their lead to 6-0.\u00a0<\/p>\n
St. Lucie designated hitter Julio Zayas homered in the sixth to make it 7-0. Questad worked two innings, his longest outing in a dozen appearances this season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Leading off the seventh, Nunez\u00a0ended his 10-pitch at-bat with a double down the left field line.\u00a0Ricardo Paez\u00a0followed with a double of his own, putting the Mussels on the board. Fort Myers had just two hits through the first six innings before connecting on the back-to-back doubles off of Emilio Obispo (5-2).\u00a0An RBI groundout from\u00a0Jayson Bass\u00a0made it 7-2.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the eighth, Zayas connected on his second home run of the game, this time off\u00a0Mike McKenna, to move the score to 8-2.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The series continues today, July 22.\u00a0Callan Fang\u00a0(1.00) starts for the Mussels, opposite Jose Lopez (4.00). First pitch is scheduled for 11:10 a.m. with coverage beginning at 11 a.m. on the Mighty Mussels Baseball Network.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Irvin Nunez drove in six runs in the 24-8 win. PHOTO PROVIDED PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. \u00a0\u2013 The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":125179,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[171,173,172],"class_list":["post-349009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","tag-port-st-lucie-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349009","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=349009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349009\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}