Threshers' Harris hits three homers

That was the only thing the St. Lucie Mets could do Saturday to stop Clay Harris, who homered three times and drove in a career-high six runs to power the Clearwater Threshers to an 11-3 victory at Tradition Field.

After homering in his first three at-bats, Harris was plunked in each of his final two plate appearances. He was hit by a pitch in the seventh inning, sparking a bench-clearing incident, and was plunked again with the bases loaded in the eighth.

"I was disappointed," Harris said. "Obviously, three homers doesn't happen much. After the third one, I thought I would had a couple of chances to try for another.

"After that fourth at-bat, I thought they came after me on purpose. I guess that's what their pitcher had to do to protect his team."

Harris never had a multi-homer game before Saturday but hit two-run blasts in the first and third off Dylan Owen, then led off the fifth against reliever Ryan Coultas and deposited another shot beyond the left-field fence.

"In my third at-bat, I got into a hitter's count, 3-1," he said. "I knew a fastball was coming, I was looking for something in and put a good swing on it.

"I wasn't trying to hit them out of the park. Balls I was hitting square, they were elevated and they were going out."

Harris also got plunked by the Mets (7-3) on Friday night. The 25-year-old first baseman has been on a tear, which may be contributing to the treatment he's been receiving from opposing teams.

Selected by the Phillies in the ninth round of the 2005 First-Year Player Draft, Harris is 16-for-25 with four homers and 16 RBIs during an eight-game hitting streak that has raised his average 79 points to .342. That includes a five-RBI effort against Vero Beach on Monday.

The Texas native had two previous five-RBI games but established a career high when he was hit again in the eighth. But he never got a chance to match the Florida State record for homers in a game, established by Daytona's Ryan Harvey on July 28, 2006.

"I'm not going to forget [tonight]" Harris said. "It's fun how it started, and what happened towards the end of the game, that's baseball. I'm definitely not going to look at it in a bad way. It's unfortunate I didn't have the chance to have a fourth one. But I was happy I had a chance to hit three."

Harris hasn't been much of a power hitter during three-plus professional seasons. He came into 2008 with 25 homers over 306 games, including a career high of 13 for Class A Lakewood in 2006.

Clearwater's Edgar Garcia (8-2) won his third straight start after giving up two runs on four hits and a walk with one strikeout over six-plus innings. He was ejected in the seventh after hitting leadoff batter Jordan Abruzzo.

St. Lucie reliever Casey Hoorelbeke was tossed after hitting in the eighth and German Marte was ejected after plunking the Threshers' Tuffy Gosewisch leading off the ninth.

Owen (6-5), the 2007 New York-Penn League Pitcher of the Year, surrendered six runs on eight hits in 3 1/3 innings and had a personal four-game winning streak snapped.