De La Cruz dazzles in Thursday homer-fest in Pensacola

PENSACOLA, FL - The Mississippi Braves (24-27) and Pensacola Blue Wahoos (31-22) had a homer-fest at Blue Wahoos Stadium, but Mississippi came up with the 6-4 victory to take a 2-1 series lead. The clubs combined to hit six home runs on Thursday night and have hit 15 over the first three games of the series. 

Ryan Casteel  handed M-Braves starting pitcher Jasseel De La Cruz  a 2-0 lead in the top of the first inning on a two-run home run to left. Casteel's fifth homer of the season tied him with Connor Lien  for the team lead. 

De La Cruz made his second Double-A start and the 21-year-old dazzled despite the wind blowing out to left all night long. Pensacola trimmed the lead in half during the fourth inning on the first of their four solo home runs. Ben Rortvedt sent one over the left field wall to make it 2-1. 

Tyler Neslony  homered on Wednesday night in his first game back from the Injured List and the Corpus Christi, Texas native hit another on Thursday. After back-to-back singles by Cristian Pache and Drew Waters , Neslony lifted a fly ball over the left field wall, extending the lead to 5-1. 

De La Cruz would surrender a solo home run to Jaylin Davis in the sixth, but worked 6.0 innings of two-run baseball on just three hits, walking two and striking out eight. 

The M-Braves stretched the lead to 6-2 in the eighth inning on back-to-back doubles from Riley Unroe and Luis Valenzuela . 

Andres Santiago  pitched a scoreless seventh inning for the Braves, and then Josh Graham took over in the eighth. Graham gave up a solo homer to Rortvedt in the eighth and another to Davis in the ninth to make it 6-4. Chris Maloney summoned Jeremy Walker for the second straight day to close the game out and the 6'6" right-hander came through. Walker struck out pinch-hitter Mitchell Kranson to earn his second career save. 

Waters increased his hitting streak to seven games with a 2-for-4 night at the plate, his 18th multi-hit game of the season. Pache was 1-for-5, upping his hitting streak to six games. Neslony, Casteel and Unroe also had two hits on Thursday night. The M-Braves had 12 hits in the game, five for extra-bases and now have 23 over the last two games. 

The M-Braves will look to clinch the series on Friday night at Blue Wahoos Stadium. Atlanta Braves No. 3 overall prospect RHP Ian Anderson (2-3, 3.38) takes the hill for the M-Braves against RHP Andro Cutura (0-2, 6.87) for the Blue Wahoos. First pitch is set for 6:35 pm with coverage beginning at 6:23 pm on 103.9 WYAB, TuneIn Radio, MiLB First Pitch app. and MiLB.TV (subscription required).