CLEARWATER, Fla. - Adonis Medina delivered a shutdown performance in his Clearwater debut, and the Threshers crushed three home runs on the way to their first victory of the season, 8-0 over the Dunedin Blue Jays on Friday night.Medina, Alexis Rivero, and Blake Quinn combined to blank the Blue Jays,
CLEARWATER, Fla. - Adonis Medina delivered a shutdown performance in his Clearwater debut, and the Threshers crushed three home runs on the way to their first victory of the season, 8-0 over the Dunedin Blue Jays on Friday night.
Medina, Alexis Rivero, and Blake Quinn combined to blank the Blue Jays, while the offense pounded out eight runs on 10 hits.
Darick Hall and Edgar Cabral opened the scoring with back-to-back solo shots to lead off the second inning against Tayler Saucedo (0-1), lifting Clearwater to its first lead of the season. With one down, Luke Williams stung a deep drive to left for the Threshers third long ball of the inning, putting Clearwater ahead 3-0.
Medina (1-0) struck out four of the first five he faced in the start, scattering five hits and a walk in his 5.1 shutout innings. The 21-year-old struck out five on the night, exiting after 85 pitches (55 strikes).
Rivero entered the game with the tying run at the plate and one out in the sixth, and promptly struck out Riley Adams on a fastball before getting John LaPrise to fly out to left to end the threat.
Clearwater opened it up in the home half, plating three more runs to go up 6-0.
Mickey Moniak led off the frame with a double to left-center, and with one out Adam Haseley came through with a single to bring Moniak home. Following a two-out walk to Cabral, Austin Listi smacked a two-run double to left-center.
The Threshers continued to tack on in the seventh, when Jose Gomez reached on an infield single and later scored on Haseley's two-out knock to left. Listi came through again for Clearwater in the eighth, this time depositing a double to left that scored Cabral to make it 8-0.
Quinn took it the rest of the way, permitting two hits across two scoreless innings to finish off the combined shutout.
The series swings over to Dunedin Stadium for the final two of the four-game set, with first pitch on Saturday set for 6:30 p.m. Lefty McKenzie Mills toes the rubber in his season debut, opposed by Patrick Murphy. The game will be broadcast live on threshersbaseball.com starting at 6:15 p.m.
