St. Lucie 3 - Dunedin 1

Four St. Lucie pitchers held Dunedin to three hits as the Mets beat the Blue Jays 3-1 on Friday at Florida Auto Exchange Stadium.

Starter Rob Whalen won his second straight game after going 0-2 in his first five starts. Whalen tossed 98 pitches in 5.2 innings. He gave up just two hits and one run while striking out three and walking a batter.

Robby Coles got the final out of the sixth in dramatic fashion. With Matt Dean at second base, Mitch Nay hit a single to left. Michael Conforto gunned out Dean at the plate for the final out to preserve a 2-1 lead.

In his seventh rehab appearance with St. Lucie, Bobby Parnell worked a scoreless inning for the second time. Parnell walked a batter but did not give up a hit in the seventh. He struck out Dickie Joe Thon to end the inning and strand Derrick Loveless on third base. Parnell’s rehab will now move to Double-A Binghamton.

Josh Smoker, recently promoted for Savannah, retired all six batters he faced in the eighth and ninth to earn his first save. He struck out two.

All four runs in the game – three for the Mets and one for the Blue Jays – were scored in rather dull fashion.

The Mets took a 2-0 lead in the third thanks to the wildness of Jays starter Jairo Labourt. Labourt walked Adrian Abreu and Champ Stuart to start the inning. Phil Evans hit a grounder to move the runners to second and third. Abreu scored on a wild pitch and so did Stuart on another wild pitch later in the frame.

Thon led off the bottom half of the third with a double. He went to third on a ground out and scored on Roemon Fields’ ground out to second to make it 2-1.

The Mets added an insurance run in the seventh. Back-to-back singles by Amed Rosario and Yeixon Ruiz put runners on the corners. Abreu then drove in Rosario with a ground out to complete the scoring.

Rosario and Miakis De La Cruz both went 2 for 4. Team press release