CLEARWATER, Fla. - Raul Rivas rocketed a ball over the wall in right field to push the Threshers to a walk off win over the Dunedin Blue Jays Wednesday night at Spectrum Field.Rivas bashed his second long ball of the season to give the Threshers the win. The Threshers infielder
CLEARWATER, Fla. - Raul Rivas rocketed a ball over the wall in right field to push the Threshers to a walk off win over the Dunedin Blue Jays Wednesday night at Spectrum Field.
Rivas bashed his second long ball of the season to give the Threshers the win. The Threshers infielder went 2-for-4 on the night with an RBI double, a homerun, and two runs scored.
Clearwater (38-20) (70-56) continues to lead the FSL North Division with just 11 games left to play in the regular season. With the win, The Threshers remain four games up on the Lakeland Flying Tigers, who also won on Wednesday, and go ahead 6.5 games on Dunedin.
After three scoreless innings, the Blue Jays (32-27) (63-64) plated the game's first run in the fourth inning. Riley Adams lined a one-out double into right-center field and advanced to third on a wild pitch. Chad Spanberger then slid a groundball through the right side to plate the run for a 1-0 lead.
The Threshers snatched the lead in the bottom of the fifth. Kevin Markham drew a two-out walk, and Rivas drifted a fly ball into shallow left field for extra bases to tie it up at one a piece.
Jose Gomez followed with a ground ball that sliced through the left side for an RBI single to seize the 2-1 advantage.
The cross-town rivals traded two spots in the sixth.
Adams knocked a line drive into center field and moved up to second on a wild pitch. Ivan Castillo reached on a walk, and Brock Lundquist lined a base hit into right to bring home Adams and knot it up 2-2.
Dunedin retook the lead a batter later when Rodrigo Orozco put down a bunt single to drive the Blue Jays up one run over the Threshers.
Clearwater grabbed those two runs back in the home half of the inning. Mickey Moniak glided a groundball through into left field for a base hit, and Henri Lartigue followed with a walk to put two men on. With one away, Mickey Moniak scored on a groundball that was misplayed in the field for an error, and Henri Lartigue scored on a sacrifice fly by Kevin Markham to put the Threshers ahead once again 4-3.
The back-and-forth continued as the Blue Jays came back to tie it up in the top of the ninth after a pair of two-out knocks sent Nash Knight across the plate.
In the bottom of the ninth inning, Rivas launched his walk-off winning shot to push the Threshers over the Blue Jays 5-4.
David Parkinson surrendered just one run off five hits permitting two walks and tallying two strikeouts in five innings in the start.
Jonathan Hennigan was tagged for two runs on three hits in an inning of work, and Trever Bettencourt tossed two scoreless.
Addison Russ (4-0) earned the win for the Threshers, giving up one run off two hits and recording two strikeouts to close the game.
The three-game series wraps up Thursday night as RHP Adonis Medina (9-3) takes on RHP Patrick Murphy (9-5) at Spectrum Field with the first pitch scheduled for 7 p.m. Josh Appel will have the call on threshersbaseball.com with the pregame show beginning at 6:45 p.m.
