Miracle find 13’s unlucky

Lakeland ends win streak by Fort Myers at 12 games

By Glenn Miller
Fort Myers News Press

LAKELAND — They knew their winning streak had to end sometime and someplace. Sometime, as it turned out, was Saturday night and someplace was in Lakeland’s Joker Marchant Stadium.

The Fort Myers Miracle’s 12-game winning streak was snapped by the Lakeland Flying Tigers, who took advantage of two Miracle errors in beating Fort Myers 5-2.

The winning streak began Aug. 5 and it is believed to have equaled the longest ever for a Lee County professional sports team. The Fort Myers Royals, who also played in the Class A Florida State League, posted a 12-game winning streak in 1982. The Florida Everblades of the ECHL equaled that number in 1999.

Thirteen has, apparently, proven unlucky for local professional teams on long winning streaks.

With the loss, the Miracle are 3.5 games behind the first-place Dunedin Blue Jays in the FSL’s Western Division. Fort Myers became contenders because of the winning streak.

“We’re rolling,” said the Miracle’s Jay Rainville, Saturday’s losing pitcher. “One game is not going to stop us.”

The winning magic dissipated on a humid Central Florida evening, vanishing in a flurry of errors.

The key was a fifth inning that the Miracle wish they could wipe off the books. Two errors and a walk contributed to Lakeland scoring three runs and turning a 2-2 contest into a 5-2 game.

The go-ahead run, in the person of left fielder Deik Scram, reached base when Fort Myers center fielder Dustin Martin dropped a fly ball.

Scram scrambled home from third base when Miracle first baseman Johnny Woodard booted a ground ball.

Martin called for the fly ball but hesitated because he was near left fielder Juan Portes.

“I knew it was mine,” Martin sad.

But he reached for the ball instead of getting in front of it and couldn’t hold on to it.

Then, it got worse. The errors prolonged the inning.

Lakeland took advantage, tacking on two more runs on a two-out single by shortstop Shawn Roof. All three Lakeland runs in the inning were unearned.

The Miracle, meanwhile, were limited to seven hits by four Lakeland pitchers and wondered about missed opportunities.

In four of the last five innings, Fort Myers placed the leadoff batter on base, but failed to score. It hit into double plays in the sixth and seventh.

“We missed some chances offensively,” Miracle manager Kevin Boles said. “We missed some chances early on. We didn’t come up with the big hit, but, again, I told these guys it’s been an honor to be part of their development. We have a lot of work to do.”

For 12 games, they always seemed to get the big hit. Not Saturday.

“That’s baseball,” said Miracle designated hitter Erik Lis, who was 2-for-4, with two doubles.

On Saturday, for the first time in a long time, it was losing baseball.