Romero Impresses in 3-0 Loss to Tampa
CLEARWATER, Fla. - JoJo Romero matched a career-high with 10 strikeouts in his first start for Clearwater, but the Threshers were shut out on six hits in suffering a 3-0 loss to the Tampa Yankees on Sunday afternoon.Romero permitted only an unearned run across 6.1 strong innings, yielding just three
CLEARWATER, Fla. - JoJo Romero matched a career-high with 10 strikeouts in his first start for Clearwater, but the Threshers were shut out on six hits in suffering a 3-0 loss to the Tampa Yankees on Sunday afternoon.
Romero permitted only an unearned run across 6.1 strong innings, yielding just three hits and a pair of walks. He struck out 10 for the second time in his last three starts, having also racked up ten on June 16 for the Lakewood Blue Claws.
The 20-year-old mixed speeds and kept Tampa (45-34, 6-3) off balance throughout. The only run against him came with two out in the bottom of the fifth, when an error on Jan Hernandez at third allowed Angel Aguilar to score and put the Yankees up 1-0.
Dillon Tate (3-0) was dominant for Tampa through seven innings, holding Clearwater scoreless on six hits. The hard-throwing right-hander did not permit a walk and set a career-high with 11 strikeouts.
Chad Martin entered in place of Tate in the eighth, and the Threshers (43-36, 5-4) put the leadoff man on as Grenny Cumana was hit by a pitch.
Cord Sandberg got ahead in the count 3-1, and the Threshers put on a hit-and-run. With Cumana taking off for second, Sandberg hit a liner toward the middle. Second baseman Gosuke Katoh made a diving grab to his right to snare the liner and rob Sandberg of a base hit, then threw to first to double off Cumana.
Sandberg finished 1-for-4 on the day, and has reached base in 17 consecutive games for the Threshers.
Tampa grabbed a pair of insurance runs off Blake Quinn in the ninth, when Angel Aguilar doubled home a run and Jeff Hendrix reached on an error on Emmanuel Marrero at short, scoring Aguilar to make it 3-0.
Martin walked Cornelius Randolph to open the bottom of the ninth, but induced the final three outs to earn his first save for Tampa.
The Threshers will go for the series win in the finale on Monday, as José Taveras (5-3) takes the hill with first pitch at 6:15 p.m. The game will be broadcast live on threshersbaseball.com starting at 6 p.m. A patriotic post-game fireworks show will follow, presented by Budweiser.