Daytona Cubs pushes St. Lucie Mets to the brink - TCPalm
DAYTONA BEACH — The Daytona Cubs are one win away.
They're one win away from their first Florida State League title in three years and their eighth championship overall.
Showing the kind of bats that led them to 47 wins in the first half of the season, the Cubs jumped on St. Lucie early and rolled to a 10-4 win Saturday night in Game 2 of the FSL Championship Series at Jackie Robinson Ballpark.
"It's guys that really want to win the game. That's what it comes down to," said Daytona first baseman Justin Bour, who was 2-for-4 with a three-run homer. "We were down 1-0 in that first series and we kind of just didn't give up."
Daytona (77-61, 4-1), which won Game 1 3-1 Friday night, now gets three games to win one in Port St. Lucie, beginning with Sunday's 6:35 p.m. Game 3 at Digital Domain Park.
The best-of-five series will remain in Port St. Lucie — over the next three days if necessary. The Mets (72-69, 2-3) cling to hope of rallying for their first FSL title since 2006.
"We just didn't execute tonight. We didn't pitch well and couldn't get anything going with the bats," St. Lucie manager Pedro Lopez said. "When you're playing against a team like that you've got to make sure you play a clean game in order to be somewhere close at the end."
St. Lucie will have do the near improbable after Daytona starter Frank Del Valle and the Cubs displayed nothing but their dominant first-half form in Game 2.
Del Valle took a no-hitter into the fourth inning and struck out eight in six innings and the Cubs turned a 5-1 lead into a blowout with a two-homer, five-run seventh inning.
"We had solid pitching tonight. Del Valle was good and shut them down for six (innings)," Daytona manager Buddy Bailey said. "Early in the game we got some runs with some speed and later in the game we got them with the long ball so it was a good mix and very similar to what we were doing earlier in the year."
St. Lucie starter Scott Moviel lasted only three innings, giving up five hits, four runs — two earned — and striking out and walking none.
Five Daytona Cubs had multiple hits and Matt Szczur finished 3-for-4 with a double and two RBIs.
"I think it's nothing about lack of effort and more they're trying too hard right now," Lopez said. "They've just got to learn how to relax a little bit. We made three errors tonight and it cost them."
After a scoreless first, Szczur staked the hosts to a 1-0 lead in the second inning when he singled in Michael Burgess.
Daytona put three runs on the board in the third thanks to three timely hits and a crucial throwing error by Moviel.
Moviel's miscue on a sacrifice bunt scored Chad Noble, who led off with a double. Matt Cerda followed by knocking in Evan Crawford and Burgess' sacrifice fly to center scored Logan Watkins, staking the host to a 4-0 margin.
Daytona increased its lead to 5-0 in the sixth when Jake Opitz and Szczur opened the bottom half of the inning with back-to-back doubles.
"I think that is the first time in a while that we had the runs that we did," Bour said. "It was really nice to get out there and score some runs and have some hits."
After six scoreless innings and just two hits St. Lucie's Jefry Marte led off the seventh with a solo homer off of reliever Juan Serrano and it looked as if the Mets might rally.
Travis Ozga followed by reaching base on an error but Serrano settled down to get out of the inning.
Daytona responded with the long ball – two of them actually. Bour sent a three-run homer over the right-centerfield fence and after Burgess' double Jake Opitz sent a two-run shot over the centerfield fence.
St. Lucie put two runs on the board in the final inning but it was too little too late for the visitors, who face elimination here on out.
"When you start a series you'd like to be in this position but we've still got to win one more," Bailey said. "It was nice to win and we're really looking forward to going down there. Hopefully we can find a way to win and return to Daytona (tonight)."
11 Sep, 2011--
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