5/16/17

Lakeland 2 - St. Lucie 0 (Marcos Molina returns)



The Lakeland Flying Tigers shut out the St. Lucie Mets 2-0 on Education Day at Joker Marchant Stadium on Tuesday.

Flying Tigers starter Spencer Turnbull held the Mets to four hits and one walk in seven strong innings. He struck out six.

Mark Ecker pitched out of a jam in the eighth and Gerson Moreno worked around a single in the ninth to get the save.

Marcos Molina started for the Mets. It was his first minor league game since August 2015 (excluding the 2016 Arizona Fall League). Molina allowed just one hit and one run in four innings. He walked one and struck out three. Molina missed all of 2016 with Tommy John surgery and the start of this year with a lat injury.

Joey Pancake started the third inning with a triple just inside the right field line. Molina got a strikeout before surrendering a sac fly to Ross Kivett that plated Pancake for a 1-0 Lakeland lead.

The Flying Tigers scored an unearned run in the seventh. It appeared Kevin Canelon would escape the inning unscathed, but Leon Byrd made an error with two outs on a Pancake ground ball that loaded the bases. Tim Remes then worked a RBI walk on a full count to make it 2-0.

The Mets nearly tied the game in the eighth. With two runners in scoring position and two outs, Jhoan Urena just missed keeping a ball fair down the right field line that would have been extra bases. Ecker struck Urena out on the next pitch.

The Mets outhit the Flying Tigers 7-4. John Mora singled in the eighth to extend his hitting streak to 12 games.

The Mets (17-22) and Flying Tigers (19-20) play the third game of their series at Joker Marchant Stadium on Wednesday at 6:30 p.m.

3 comments:

Tom Brennan said...

Nice! Stay healthy, Marcos. Plenty of good pitching jobs available in Queens. Hope to see you in Queens this year.

Mack Ade said...

Well, Molina and none of these guys will be in Queens this years.

Queens this year is for the current 25-man and bottom of the barrel replacements until someone throws 7 innings

Viper said...

Forgotten about him. TMJ is already out of the way I see.