Feliz goes yard in 9-1 defeat to Hammerheads

FORT MYERS, Fla. (July 16, 2021) – Jesus Feliz delivered his first Low-A home run Friday, but the Mighty Mussels lost their third straight game to the Jupiter Hammerheads 9-1 at Hammond Stadium.

Feliz’ blast left the bat at 107.5 mph and carried 420 feet, well over the left field berm. The eighth inning homer broke up the shutout, but it was one of only two Fort Myers (35-29) hits on the night.

After a big offensive week in St. Lucie, the Mussels’ have managed just four runs on 12 hits over the last three games.

Fort Myers starting pitcher Bobby Milacki (2-3) was cruising through four scoreless innings but ran intro trouble in the middle innings. In a scoreless game in the top of the fifth, Marcus Chiu singled to right with two outs. After a Nasim Nunez single put two men on, Jan Mercado dropped a base hit into center to score Chiu and give Jupiter (29-34) a 1-0 lead. The next batter was Victor Mesa Jr., who hit a sharp grounder to Yunior Severino. Severino shuffled to his left but bobbled the ball, allowing Nunez to score and make it 2-0.

Milacki allowed another run on back-to-back singles to start the sixth, but retired the next three batters to complete his first quality start of the season. The Arizona native fanned four without walking a batter over six innings.

Brad Hanner worked 2.1 innings of relief but gave up three runs in both the seventh and ninth innings respectively, as Jupiter put the game out of reach.

The Mussels will look to salvage a split of the series over the next two days, with Miguel Rodriguez (2-2, 3.62) set to make the start at 7 p.m. on Saturday. Eury Perez (1-2, 2.06) gets the ball for Jupiter. Coverage begins at 6:45 p.m. on the Mighty Mussels Baseball Network.