The Lakeland Flying Tigers (12-6) dropped Thursday night’s contest in a wild, offensive-filled 11-8 loss to the Tampa Tarpons (6-12) at Joker Marchant Stadium.
After Wednesday's contest was a pitcher’s duel, with both teams trading zeroes until the bottom of the seventh, Thursday was much different. Tampa scored at least one run from each inning two through eight and Lakeland tallied runs in five separate frames. All 19 position players reached base at least once.
Lakeland opened up the scoring in the bottom of the first off Tyler Boudreau, who lasted just 0.2 innings. Jesus Pinto led off the frame with a triple followed by a Jude Warwick walk. Zach MacDonald drove in Pinto on a sacrifice fly before Jack Goodman singled. Beau Ankeney smacked an RBI double, scoring Warwick. Anibal Salas scored Goodman on a sacrifice fly and Newremberg Rondon scored Ankeney on an RBI walk, pushing the Flying Tigers lead to 4-0.
The Tarpons scored one run each in the second and third innings off Malachi Witherspoon. Tampa’s JoJo Jackson hit a leadoff homer in the second, followed by Bryce Martin-Grudzielanek third-inning RBI double, cutting the deficit to 4-2.
Both teams traded runs over the next six half-innings. Lakeland responded for one run in the bottom of the third off Jose Martinez on an error from the first baseman, giving the home side a 5-2 lead. Austin Green hit a sacrifice fly off Jan Caraballo in the top of the fourth, bringing Tampa within two. Ankeney lofted an RBI single in the bottom of the fourth off Martinez, restoring a three-run lead. The Tarpons countered with two in the fifth off Cash Kuiper with an RBI groundout from Jackson and a solo shot from Martin-Grudzielanek, cutting the deficit to 6-5. In the bottom half, Javier Osorio smashed a solo shot off Matthew Tippie, bringing the Flying Tigers lead back to two at 7-5.
Tampa took its first lead of the night with three runs in the sixth off Kuiper. Enmnauel Tejeda tied the game with a two-run single and Jackson gave the visitors an 8-7 lead on an RBI groundout. The Tarpons added two more in the seventh off Pedro Garcia on a wild pitch and a Logan Maxwell RBI walk, extending the lead to 10-7. The visitors added one more in the eighth on an RBI groundout from Green against Andrew Pogue.
Lakeland countered for one in the bottom of the eighth off Parker Seay on a Pinto RBI single, but the rally fell short, as John Tiedemann shut the door on the Flying Tigers for an 11-8 Tampa win.
Tippie (1-1) earned the win, going 2.1 innings, allowing one hit, two runs (one earned) while striking out six and walking one. Kuiper (0-1) took the loss, tossing 1.1 innings while allowing five runs on five hits while punching out three. Tiedemann (1) notched the four-out save and collected one strikeout.
Lakeland hosts Tampa for the fourth game of a six-game set on Friday night at 6:30 p.m. The Flying Tigers will send out RHP Charlie Christensen (1-0, 0.00) to face Tampa LHP Justin West (1-2, 7.30).
