Fort Myers v. St. Lucie: My First Assignment is a Memorable Tebow Moment

Sunday was my very first assignment watching the St. Lucie Mets come into town to play the Fort Myers Miracle at Hammond Stadium in Fort Myers, Florida, for the second game of a four game series. This was the first game of a doubleheader scheduled because the game on Saturday night was postponed due to a typical summer afternoon down pour in Southwest Florida.

The locals are used to it. They know the rains come and prepare for it. They have their parkas and umbrellas. Fortunately, the umbrellas are used to redirect the sun’s rays too.

It gets very humid down here. The air expands and creates thunderstorms of Biblical proportions. At least they get to see Tim Tebow play left field and see if he’s ready to play at the Florida State League level after his promotion from Columbia. Tebow made an outstanding catch in Friday night’s game that has been viewed by over 600,000 on Facebook.

I was ready to keep score and observe all I could take in from the Press Box. No laptop or other device. This is old school with a scorecard and a pen. At least the storms held up for the two o’clock start with Miracle pitcher, Brady Anderson throwing his first pitch to leadoff hitter, John Mora.

Anderson pitched well until the third inning when Tebow came to bat against him. After Jhoan Urena lined out to Miracle second baseman, Sean Miller, Tebow worked out a walk to get the Mets going. Next batter, right fielder Wuilmer Becerra jumped on Anderson’s pitch into the gap. Tebow tried to score from first base but was thrown out at the plate. Catcher Kevin Garcia did a great job of taking the throw from left fielder, Jaylin Davis, and tagging Tebow by a fairly wide margin as tghe former Gator QB, made a head first slide trying to sneak a hand on the plate. Second baseman, Michael Paez doubled to knock in Becerra to give the Mets a 1-0 lead.

After the Miracle tied the game in the bottom of the fourth, Anderson appeared to be losing his control. With the temperature hitting 94, Anderson gave up singles to J.C. Rodriguez, Mora, and Anthony Dimino to load the bases with no one out. Mets’ first baseman, Peter Alonso crushed Anderson’s pitch into the burr for a grand slam, to give the Mets a 5-1 lead.

The Miracle clawed their way back with one run in the bottom of the fifth. Johnny Magliozzi came on to pitch in the bottom of the seventh and was not greeted warmly by the Miracle. Singles by Miller and Max Murphy put runners on first and second with no outs. Brandon Lopez and Jermaine Palacios each followed with singles of their own to drive in two more runs.

With runners on first and third, Joshua Torres was brought in to stop the hard charging Miracle bats. He quickly got Zander Wiel to fly out to right. Torres then got Kevin Garcia to hit into a game-ending double play to preserve the win for the Mets and collect his second save.

This was a hard fought game from both teams in a hot humid Sunday afternoon. I enjoyed watching these ball players from both the Mets and Miracle play hard and play good fundamental baseball. For most, the attraction was of Tim Tebow. He is a work in progress. He tends to be tight at batting with little time for relaxation. He runs hard but needs to work on his base running skills. I think it’s not going to be resolved any time soon. But he makes the game interesting to watch and sells more tickets so the other players can get more exposure to the local fan base. I think this is a good thing and I am glad I was able to witness this for my first assignment as a writer.

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In Game 2 of the doubleheader, the Miracle scored eight runs in the bottom of the fourth and pulled away for a 12-1 victory. The Mets and Miracle will complete their 4-game series on Monday night.