Lower Minors: Plawecki Smacks Two More Doubles, DeGrom Ks 7, Taijeron Rips Erupts With Four Hits

St. Lucie 6, Bradenton 5

Jacob DeGrom started the game strong for St. Lucie by retiring the first eight batters that he faced, but he ran into trouble in the fourth inning. DeGrom gave up three runs off four hits in the frame. He then gave up a home run to Willy Garcia in the sixth that put St. Lucie behind 4-3.

However, the Mets were able to retake the lead due to some sloppy defense by the Bradenton Marauders. Travis Taijeron scored the tying run in the seventh on a fielding error. Then, in the ninth, Cam Maron reached base on an error, advanced to second base on a wild pitch, and then scored on a dropped fly ball by the second baseman to put St. Lucie ahead. The Marauders committed six errors in the game.

Unfortunately, St. Lucie quickly gave back the lead in the bottom of the ninth. T.J Chism recorded the first two outs of the inning, but gave up a fly ball that was just out of the reach of second baseman T.J Rivera that tied the game.

In the 12^th, St. Lucie went ahead for good. Charles Thurber scored the winning run on a force out, and Hamilton Bennett picked up the save in the bottom of the inning.

Player Notes:

Jacob DeGrom pitched better than his line showed since many of the hits he gave up weren’t hit very hard.

T.J Rivera crushed a three run double off the CF wall for the first runs of the game, but he failed to come through twice with runners on third with less than 2 outs later in the game.

Aderlin Rodriguez had a rough night at the plate going 0-6 with 2 K’s.

Key Stats

Jacob DeGrom: 6.0 IP, 7 H, 4 ER, 0 BB, 7 K, 1HR
T.J Rivera: 2-for-7, 2B, 3 RBI
Travis Taijeron: 4-for-5, 3B, 2B, 1 R, 1 BB

Rome 5, Savannah 2

Savannah (4-4) jumped out to an early lead on a Kevin Plawecki‘s RBI double in the top of the first. Rome (5-3) got the run right back in the bottom half of the first through an RBI single by Carlos Franco. They took the lead in the second after an error by SS Phillips Evans with the bases loaded. Not to be outdone, the Sand Gnats evened the score in the top of the fourth on a double play with the bases loaded, which scored Kevin Plawecki. Plawecki had led off the inning with a double, one of two on the evening.

Rome took the lead for good with a three spot in the bottom of the fifth inning off Gnats starter Gabriel Ynoa, who failed to record an out in the fifth before being lifted. Ynoa would go four innings, allowing five runs, four of them earned, on eight hits and two walks. He did strike out four. The Gnats were kept in the game with stellar relief work by Bret Mitchell who pitched two perfect innings and they got a perfect inning each from Beck Wheeler and Tim Peterson.