'Tees sweep Jays with Tuesday matinee win

VIERA, Fla. - An early morning wake-up call was no problem for the Brevard County Manatees as they completed a three-game sweep of the Dunedin Blue Jays with a 3-1 win on Tuesday afternoon at Space Coast Stadium.

A combined 12 walks in the game forced a slow pace to start, but the free passes proved to be important to both teams as three of the four runners who scored in the game were put on by walks.

Oliver Dominguez scored the first run of the game in the second inning, and the only one for Dunedin, as he reached on a walk and then moved to second on a wild pitch. Derrick Chung came through with an RBI single to give the Blue Jays a 1-0 lead that lasted until the bottom of the third.

Brandon Macias led off the third with a base hit, with a wild pitch giving him second base. Consecutive one-out walks to Yadiel Rivera and Mitch Haniger respectively, loaded the bases for Greg Hopkins to single in the tying run. Cody Hawn then drew a bases loaded walk to give the Manatees (4-2 second half, 41-32 overall) a 2-1 lead. Both Macias and Hopkins had two hits each.

Brevard County tacked on another run in the seventh, when Yadiel Rivera doubled to drive home Chadwin Stang, who had reached on a free pass.

Rivera has now hit safely in his last seven games at a .522 clip (12-for-23) with five runs scored, five runs batted in, one home run and three doubles. He has struck out just twice in that stretch and has drawn a walk in three straight contests for just the second time in his professional career. The shortstop also took five walks in a four-day span from July 15-18, 2011 with Helena.

Cody Scarpetta (0-2, 5.93) turned in arguably the best start of his young season thus far, with the only knock against him being his four walks. Dunedin (1-5, 38-34) could only scrape up one run with one hit against the righty, with Scarpetta sitting three of his opponents down on strikes.

Chad Pierce earned the win in relief of Scarpetta. Pierce hurled four scoreless frames, while allowing one base hit and three walks to go along with three strikeouts before Tommy Toledo's perfect ninth inning earned him his 13th save.

Dunedin starting pitcher Casey Lawrence left the game with an apparent injury after amassing a full count on Nick Ramirez to lead off the second inning. Blue Jays' reliever Marco Grifantini was hung with the loss, despite surrendering just two runs in five unexpected relief innings.

Brevard County will open a six-game road trip with a three-game set against the Clearwater Threshers (2-2, 37-35), beginning at 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday night at Bright House Field. Jacob Barnes (5-2, 3.57) will take the mound for the Manatees.