CLEARWATER, Fla. - Henri Lartigue delivered the game-winning single with two outs in the bottom of the 10th inning on Saturday night, sending Clearwater to its 10th consecutive home win with a 6-5, come-from-behind victory over the Dunedin Blue Jays at Spectrum Field.Clearwater (3-0) (35-36) is now 14-7 in June,
CLEARWATER, Fla. - Henri Lartigue delivered the game-winning single with two outs in the bottom of the 10th inning on Saturday night, sending Clearwater to its 10th consecutive home win with a 6-5, come-from-behind victory over the Dunedin Blue Jays at Spectrum Field.
Clearwater (3-0) (35-36) is now 14-7 in June, including a 10-1 record at home this month. The Threshers battled back twice, tying the game in the eighth on Grenny Cumana's first home run of the season, before rallying back again with two runs in the bottom of the 10th to earn their fifth walk-off win.
The Blue Jays (0-3) (31-40) struck for three runs off Mauricio Llovera in the first. With two on and one out, David Jacob singled home a run, and Nash Knight followed with an RBI double before Kacy Clemens' grounder to second scored Jacob, making it 3-0. In 10 prior starts this year, Llovera had not permitted a run in the first inning.
Luke Williams got Clearwater on the board in the second.
With one down, Williams lined a 1-0 pitch from Tayler Saucedo over the left field wall for his sixth home run of the season, cutting the deficit to 3-1.
Williams has gone yard five times in the month of June, and has driven in 16 runs in 18 games.
Llovera settled in after the first, allowing just a pair of walks while holding Dunedin hitless through his final four innings. The right-hander would exit after five innings, having allowed three runs on three hits while striking out seven.
Clearwater cut the deficit to one in the fifth inning, taking advantage of a pair of Dunedin miscues. Williams reached on an error on shortstop Kevin Smith, then advanced to second on a wild pickoff throw from Saucedo.
After Raul Rivas hit a ground ball to second to advance Williams to third, Cumana's grounder to short brought Williams home to make it a 3-2 ballgame.
Dunedin grabbed another run in the sixth, when David Jacob led off with a home run off reliever Grant Dyer to extend the Blue Jay lead to 4-2.
Clearwater cut it down to one again in the bottom half, after Adam Haseley clocked a one-out triple off the right field wall. Edgar Cabral followed with a sacrifice fly to center, bringing the deficit to 4-3.
Cumana came through to tie it in the eighth.
Facing reliever Jackson McClelland, Cumana smacked a liner over the left field wall for his first home run of the season, tying the ballgame at four on his fifth career round-tripper.
Jakob Hernandez worked around a leadoff double in the eighth and turned in two scoreless innings in relief, picking up four strikeouts.
With the game still tied at four into he 10th, the Blue Jays capitalized on the extra-innings rule when the free runner Rodrigo Orozco stole second, and scored with one out on a grounder from Palacios to put Dunedin ahead, 5-4.
Rivas started the bottom half as the free runner, and advanced to third on a wild pitch. Gabriel Lino brought him in with a liner to right off Ty Tice (2-2) that tied the ballgame at five.
After Brian Mims pinch ran for Lino, Haseley struck a single to right to push Mims to second. Lartigue came through in his only at-bat of the ballgame, dropping a single to left to send Mims across the plate with the winning run.
The Threshers go for the sweep in the series finale at 1 p.m. on Sunday, with McKenzie Mills on the mound against Patrick Murphy. The game will be broadcast live on threshersbaseball.com starting at 12:45 p.m.
