Miracle Hurlers Blank L-Tigers

By DAVID YATES
Ledger Correspondent

LAKELAND - The good news for Lakeland (and Detroit) Saturday was the fact that first round draft pick Andrew Miller threw two solid innings at Joker Marchant Stadium.

The better news for Fort Myers was the fact that he didn't enter the game, which was played before 664 Florida State League baseball fans, until the seventh inning.

Making his third appearance in a Lakeland uniform, the hard-throwing University of North Carolina southpaw allowed one hit while striking out three.

By then, however, the Miracle had a 3-0 lead, the same score by which they would win a very important game in their drive to capture the second-half West Division pennant.

Miracle hurlers Oswaldo Sosa, Jose Mijares, and Danny Powers were every bit as impressive as Miller, throttling the L-Tigers on two hits. Sosa went the first five innings and Mijares came in and struck out six of the Tigers he faced before Powers tossed a scoreless ninth to preserve the shutout.

Fort Myers tallied single runs in the first, third and fourth innings, the first run coming on Trevor Plouffe's fourth homer of the season.

Though the game ended in a loss, the L-Tigers have had much success against the Miracle this season. Lakeland has won 11 of the 17 games in the season series thus far.

Both teams will close out their season series at 6 p.m. tonight at Joker Marchant Stadium.