Pitching Staff Dominant in First Win of Season

For the first time in the 2021 season, the Dunedin Blue Jays finished a game in under three hours and picked up their first win of the season. The team avoided the six-game sweep to the Tarpons with a 4-1 victory from a dominant day by the pitching staff. Overall, the two offenses combined to score 125 runs across six games with 22 home runs and 125 hits.

Even with all the runs scored over the week, it was the pitching that stole the show on Sunday as there were only 10 hits in the game with five runs scored. Rafael Ohashi made his professional debut to the tune of three innings, no walks, no hits, and four strikeouts. Willy Gaston followed right behind to strikeout three and not allow a run in his two innings of work. Gaston picked up his first win of the season and now has a 1.59 ERA in two relief appearances.

After a tough outing for Gabriel Ponce to start his Low-A season earlier in the week, he came out and gave up just one run on two hits, and he struck out a game-high seven batters in his three innings of work. The Opening Night starter, Adrian Hernandez, came on in the ninth to close things out with two strikeouts in the final frame earning his first save of the year. The staff had a season-high 16 total strikeouts, and they also only walked two batters in the game.

The offense was potent early with the first two runs of the game coming by way of the long ball. Addison Barger blasted his second shot of the season in the first, and Ryan Sloniger grabbed his first homer of the season from the leadoff spot in the second inning. Barger is first on the team in RBI with seven in four games played. The final two runs for the offense came from a wild pitch to score Mack Mueller and Jhon Solarte driving in his 6th RBI of the year.

The Blue Jays travel to Clearwater as the home team this week to take on the Bradenton Marauders while the Toronto Blue Jays still occupy TD Ballpark until the end of May.