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'Tugas avoid sweep with comeback 3-2 W

Wallach and Elizalde provide RBI singles in decisive eighth inning
May 6, 2015

Lakeland, FL - The Tortugas snapped a two-game losing streak and a 21-inning scoreless streak with a dramatic 3-2 comeback win over the Flying Tigers on Wednesday at Joker Marchant Stadium. 

With Daytona trailing 2-1 in the top of the 8th, CF Phillip Ervin led off with a walk. He moved to third on a hit-and-run single from SS Alex Blandino, and scored the tying run on a single by DH Sebastian Elizalde. Elizalde went 2-for-4 and now has a league-best 14-game hitting streak.

Two pitches later, 1B Chad Wallach lined the go-ahead single into left center, scoring Blandino to put the Tortugas up, 3-2. In the bottom of the ninth, RHP Evan Mitchell (S, 4) walked the bases loaded with one out, but struck out Bobby Borchering and induced a game-ending groundout off the bat of Grayson Greiner to close the door. 

The Flying Tigers went 2-for-14 with runners in scoring position, and stranded 14 men on base.

RHP Jackson Stephens allowed just one run, on a Tyler Hanover sacrifice fly, in 4.1 innings on six hits with one walk and three strikeouts. 

RHP Jimmy Moran surrendered an RBI single to Javier Betancourt that gave Lakeland a 2-1 lead in the sixth, but that was the only hit he surrendered in 1.1 innings. He walked two hitters and struck out three.

LHP Nolan Becker (W, 1-1) was able to strand the bases loaded in the sixth inning by inducing a fly out, and went on to pitch a perfect seventh. RHP El'Hajj Muhammad (H, 3) recorded a 1-2-3 eighth inning. 

Daytona scored one run in Monday's loss, on a second-inning RBI double from C Joe Hudson. On Tuesday, the Tortugas were shut out 7-0. In the series finale, they were held scoreless by starter Locke St. John over the first five innings, but managed to break through for three runs against Scott Sitz (BS, 2) and Montreal Robertson (BS, 1)(L, 1-4).

Daytona will return home for a seven-game homestand on Thursday against the Clearwater Threshers.