Carr Tosses Gem as Mussels Beat Bradenton 7-4

FORT MYERS, Fla (August 4, 2022) – Jordan Carr tossed six scoreless innings Thursday, as the Mighty Mussels bats heated up to beat the Bradenton Marauders 7-3 at Hammond Stadium.

Carr (4-0) scattered just three hits while striking out four Marauders (49-49, 20-13) hitters, needing just 63 pitches to set his career high in innings.

In a scoreless game in the bottom of the first inning, Fort Myers (55-40, 14-17) leadoff hitter Misael Urbina smacked a full-count pitch over the left-center field wall to make it 1-0.

To lead off the second, Rubel Cespedes crushed a first pitch home run over the right field seats to extend the lead to 2-0.

With two outs in the bottom of the fourth, Cepedes singled into center field before a Daniel Ozoria double scored Cespedes to make it 3-0.

Still leading by that margin in the bottom of the fifth, Nelson Roberto led off the inning with a double. Urbina and Kala’i Rosario then walked to load the bases. Noah Cardenas drew a walk on five pitches to extend the lead to 4-0. LaRon Smith then flew out to deep right field to drive in Urbina and make it 5-0.

To start the bottom of the seventh, Urbina doubled and advanced to third on a one-out single from Rosario. After Cardenas walked to load the bases, Smith earned his second RBI on another walk. Cespedes then flew out to left field to score Urbina and cap the Mussels scoring at 7-0.

Bradenton added three runs in the top of the eighth inning on a sacrifice fly, a wild pitch, and a groundout to make it 7-3. They added one more in the ninth on a Maikol Escotto sacrifice fly but fell 7-4.

The Mighty Mussels look to extend the series lead on Friday. RHP Johnathan Lavallee (0-0, 3.86) is slated to make his first start for Fort Myers, opposed by RHP Valentin Linarez (2-7, 4.78) of Bradenton. Coverage begins at 6:45 PM on the Mighty Mussels Baseball Network.