Cruz Cranks Two Homers in 5-2 Loss to Cardinals

FORT MYERS, Fla. (July 30, 2023) – Rafael Cruz blasted a home run in the seventh inning to break up a no-hitter, but the Mighty Mussels lost 5-2 to the Palm Beach Cardinals at Hammond Stadium.

The ball traveled 385 feet as it just evaded the leaping attempt of Cardinals’ (49-44, 12-16) left fielder Kade Kretzschmar.

Trailing by four with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, Cruz corked a screaming liner off the facing off the batter’s eye in center for his second homer of the game. The dinger left his bat at 106.4 miles per hour and traveled 438 feet for his seventh round-tripper of the year and first multi-homer performance at the Single-A level.

Fort Myers (46-50, 12-18) starter Jack Noble (0-2) began his outing with four scoreless innings and seven strikeouts, his best mark since joining the Mussels.

After Noble retired the first two batters he faced in the fifth, the Cardinals began to rally when Tre Richardson singled and Chase Davis doubled to place runners at second and third. With Dakota Harris at the plate, Noble balked to force in the game’s first run, making it 1-0. Later in the same at bat, Harris rolled a single to left to score Davis and extend the lead to 2-0.

In the top of the seventh, Joshua Baez and Trey Paige walked to place two runners on with no outs. The next hitter was Richardson, who dribbled a grounder to the pitcher Johnathan Lavallee. Lavallee sailed the throw to right to score Baez to push the lead to 3-0. With runners at second and third, Won-Bin Cho then sent a sacrifice fly to center that brought home Paige to make it 4-0. Palm Beach added on one more in the frame on an RBI ground out off the bat of Harris to extend the lead to five runs.

Palm Beach starter Brycen Mautz (4-7) was spectacular, tossing six hitless innings with six strikeouts. Over his two starts in the series, he did not allow a run over eleven innings of work.

With the loss, Fort Myers dropped five of the six games in a series for the first time since early May against Dunedin.

The Mussels will enjoy an off day tomorrow before beginning a six-game series at the Dunedin Blue Jays on Tuesday. First pitch is slated for 6:30 p.m. at TD Ballpark, with coverage beginning at 6:15 p.m. on the Mighty Mussels Baseball Network.