Palm Beach Splits Doubleheader

The Palm Beach Cardinals split their doubleheader with the St. Lucie Mets. They lost the nine-inning game one 3-2, but then took game two 16-8.

Pitching in game one was outstanding. Hancel Rincon started the game in the second inning, after the game was originally suspended. The Dominican got off to a rough start, allowing two runs in his first inning of work, but then managed to avoid anymore damage, not allowing another run in the next five innings. The righty finished his day with two strikeouts and seven hits allowed. Henry Gomez tossed the final two innings. The Venezuelan struggled with control in his first inning of work, walking two batters and allowing a run, but finished the game with a shutout ninth.

Pitching in game two was much worse. Jose Davila got his first start of the season and started off strong. The Venezuelan tossed two shutout innings but had a rough third inning to finish his day. Davila struck out the first two batters before allowing three runs that inning. In total, he allowed five hits, one walk, and had four strikeouts. Augusto Calderon ran into a similar problem in his relief appearance. The righty pitched a quick and easy fourth inning, but only got one out in the next inning before being taken out. Calderon allowed a three-run homer to reduce the lead to one run. Joseph King finished the inning with no trouble, but he too finished his day on the wrong note. The Californian allowed a game-tying two-run homerun before Tanner Jacobson came in to end the game. Jacobson allowed no runs and struck out one batter in route to closing out the game and getting his first win of the season.

The offense struggled to get anything going in game one. R.J. Yeager and Won-Bin Cho each had a hit and a run scored. Yeager was driven in by Leonardo Bernal, and Cho scored after forcing a balk. Aside from that, the team pieced together a couple more hits and walks, but only had three at bats with runners in scoring position and were held hitless in all three.

The offense really came alive in game two. Every batter reached base safely at least once and each batter had an RBI or run scored. Alex Iadisernia had two hits, two RBIs, and two runs scored. R.J. Yeager had a hit, three walks, and two runs scored. Won-Bin Cho had a hit, two walks, two RBIs, and three runs scored. Leonardo Bernal had two hits, two walks, two RBIs, and two runs scored. Chris Rotondo drove in two on a ground-rule double and had one other hit with another RBI and a run scored. Michael Curialle drove in the go-ahead run on a hit by pitch in the sixth. Adanson Cruz had a huge bases clearing double, as well as scoring a run and contributing defensively. Javier Bolivar launched his first homer of the season in what turned out to be a much-needed insurance run at the time.

The Palm Beach Cardinals will travel to Daytona to face the Tortugas starting on Tuesday June 20^th at 6:35 pm.