Mets rally dooms Miracle at home

Fort Myers owned 6-5 edge in eighth inning

By SPECIAL TO THE NEWS-PRESS

The Fort Myers Miracle entered Friday nights game 17-0 when leading after seven innings.

Oops. Make that 17-1 as the Miracle lost to the St. Lucie Mets 10-6 at the Lee County Sports Complex.

With the Miracle leading 6-5 in the eighth inning, reliever Julio DePaula gave up a lead off single and one out later issued a walk to Jonathon Slack. After a balk moved both runners up, DePaula struck out Alhaji Turay.

On an 0-2 pitch to Shawn Bowman, DePaula hung a curve ball that Bowman whacked into right-center that gave the Mets a 7-6 lead.

They added three runs in the ninth against reliever Jay Sawatski, who entered play without allowing a run all season (18 innings pitched).

The Miracle faced New York Mets lefty Kaz Ishii, who was with St. Lucie on a rehab assignment. He no-hit them in his four innings, walking one and striking out three as the Miracle trailed 4-0 after four innings.

Once Ishii left the game, the Miracle exploded for five runs in the fifth inning. They sent 10 men to the plate.

Fort Myers first got on the board on a fielder's choice ground out by Trent Oeltjen. Omar Burgos followed with an RBI single and Matt Tolbert singled to load the bases. Denard Span's single to center drove in two runs and tied the game at four. The Miracle took the lead on J.R. Taylor's RBI fielder's choice.

The Mets tied the game up on a Turay solo homer in the sixth, but Fort Myers answered right back in the bottom of the sixth. Felix Molina led off with a single, went to second on a sacrifice and scored on Oeltjen's RBI single.

Tolbert and Molina each collected two hits for the Miracle. Span and Oeltjen each drove in a pair of runs.

The final game of the series is at 7:05 tonight.

The Miracle send right-hander Nick Blackburn (4-1, 2.37 ERA) to the hill against Port St. Lucie righty Philip Humber (0-3, 3.04).