Soto, Houghton Lead 10-0 Domination of Threshers

CLEARWATER, Fla. (April 13, 2024) – Charlee Soto tossed four hitless innings and Maddux Houghton led a dominant offensive showing to defeat the Clearwater Threshers 10-0 at BayCare Ballpark.

The 34^th overall pick in last year’s draft, Soto faced the minimum over four scoreless frames. He struck out seven batters and walked only one, quickly picking off the only man to reach base. Therefore, he threw all 49 pitches out of the wind up. His fastball averaged 95.4 mph and he produced a 90% whiff rate on his changeup.

The Mighty Mussels (4-4) scored in each of their final five turns at bat. At one point, they scored five consecutive runs on sacrifice flies. The leadoff man reached base in each of the first eight innings.

Saturday’s game remained scoreless into the top of the third, when Houghton drew a walk before advancing to second on an error. The next batter was Byron Chourio, who hooked an RBI double to the wall in right to make it 1-0.

From there, the Mussels connected on sacrifice flies in four consecutive innings to extend the lead to 6-0. Leading by that margin in the ninth, Fort Myers blew the game open with three extra-base hits. Houghton, Chourio, and Rafael Cruz all crushed balls to the fence to cap the scoring at 10-0.

Xander Hamilton and Kade Bragg combined to work 3.1 scoreless innings out of the Mussels’ bullpen, with Hamilton fanning three.

The Mighty Mussels will go for a six-game split at 12 p.m. on Sunday. Coverage begins at 11:45 a.m. on the Mighty Mussels Baseball Network.

Charlee Soto was nothing short of nasty in his second pro start.

The @Twins' No. 7 prospect (34th overall pick in 2023) struck out seven in four no-hit innings for the @MightyMussels: pic.twitter.com/6nNRAt135k

— MLB Pipeline (@MLBPipeline) April 13, 2024