Written By: Joe Zollo
A cloudy and humid night in Osceola County as the Florida Fire Frogs, Class A-Advanced affiliate of the Atlanta Braves, hosted the St. Lucie Mets, Class A-Advanced affiliate of the New York Mets, in game three of four in the series Monday evening. St. Lucie took the first two games of the series in a doubleheader played on Sunday.
The starting pitching matchup in this game was Justin Dunn of St. Lucie opposing Touki Toussaint of Florida. Heading into the game, Toussaint had a record of 1-6 with an ugly ERA of 6.84 while Dunn came in with a .500 record and a 5.36 ERA. Both pitchers had their fair share of strikeouts, but it was more so the defenses behind them that did the job.
In the field for St. Lucie, right fielder Arnaldo Berrios channeled his inner Jackie Bradley Jr. and made an incredible over the shoulder catch on the warning track to end the 3rd inning. He had much work Monday evening, catching four fly balls, three of them to end innings. For the rest of the game, only one other out came from the outfield as the infield of St. Lucie had themselves a fantastic night. Third baseman Jhoan Urena, who had the game’s lone RBI, had himself a night with five assists including a turned 5-4-3 double play.
One pitcher that came to play was Kevin Canelon of the Mets. Canelon pitched himself three straight 1-2-3 innings from the 6th through the 8th inning. He recorded only two strikeouts in that time and only allowed two balls to be hit into the outfield while the rest were groundouts with one double play.
For the Fire Frogs, starter Touki Toussaint allowed the game’s only run in the first inning while also walking five batters. Relief pitchers Sean McLaughlin and Corbin Clouse pitched well the final three innings of the game, but the offense of the Fire Frogs never got started. The team had a total of eight hits, but none of them could come across the plate.
A big story in this game was the suspect umpiring by both the home plate and field umpire. Many questionable strikes out calls along with a botched pickoff call in the 9th inning led to Fire Frogs manager Paul Runge coming out of the dugout on multiple occasions to argue the calls. In the 9th, Fire Frog Braxton Davidson was ejected from the game for throwing his helmet and arguing the pick off call where he was called out.
That call put up the 2nd out in the 9th, and Jonathan Morales flew out to deep right to end the game. The call was game-changing because Austin Riley was on third base and if Davidson was called safe, Riley would have had the chance to tag up and score to tie the game.
The final score in this one was 1-0 in favor of the St. Lucie Mets as they go up 3-0 in the series with game four being played June 6th with a first pitch time of 7:05. The starting pitching matchup in that game will be Nabil Crismatt of St. Lucie opposing Enderson Franco of Florida.
The starting pitching matchup in this game was Justin Dunn of St. Lucie opposing Touki Toussaint of Florida. Heading into the game, Toussaint had a record of 1-6 with an ugly ERA of 6.84 while Dunn came in with a .500 record and a 5.36 ERA. Both pitchers had their fair share of strikeouts, but it was more so the defenses behind them that did the job.
In the field for St. Lucie, right fielder Arnaldo Berrios channeled his inner Jackie Bradley Jr. and made an incredible over the shoulder catch on the warning track to end the 3rd inning. He had much work Monday evening, catching four fly balls, three of them to end innings. For the rest of the game, only one other out came from the outfield as the infield of St. Lucie had themselves a fantastic night. Third baseman Jhoan Urena, who had the game’s lone RBI, had himself a night with five assists including a turned 5-4-3 double play.
One pitcher that came to play was Kevin Canelon of the Mets. Canelon pitched himself three straight 1-2-3 innings from the 6th through the 8th inning. He recorded only two strikeouts in that time and only allowed two balls to be hit into the outfield while the rest were groundouts with one double play.
For the Fire Frogs, starter Touki Toussaint allowed the game’s only run in the first inning while also walking five batters. Relief pitchers Sean McLaughlin and Corbin Clouse pitched well the final three innings of the game, but the offense of the Fire Frogs never got started. The team had a total of eight hits, but none of them could come across the plate.
A big story in this game was the suspect umpiring by both the home plate and field umpire. Many questionable strikes out calls along with a botched pickoff call in the 9th inning led to Fire Frogs manager Paul Runge coming out of the dugout on multiple occasions to argue the calls. In the 9th, Fire Frog Braxton Davidson was ejected from the game for throwing his helmet and arguing the pick off call where he was called out.
That call put up the 2nd out in the 9th, and Jonathan Morales flew out to deep right to end the game. The call was game-changing because Austin Riley was on third base and if Davidson was called safe, Riley would have had the chance to tag up and score to tie the game.
The final score in this one was 1-0 in favor of the St. Lucie Mets as they go up 3-0 in the series with game four being played June 6th with a first pitch time of 7:05. The starting pitching matchup in that game will be Nabil Crismatt of St. Lucie opposing Enderson Franco of Florida.