The Brooklyn Cyclones defeated the Wilmington Blue Rocks by the score of 9-1 on Thursday evening at Maimonides Park. The win was Brooklyn’s eighth In their last nine contests. Jose Mena went 4-for-4 with a pair of runs scored, two doubles, and two RBI while JT Schwartz extended his hitting streak to 10 games with a 3-for-5 effort.
Luis Moreno made the start for Brooklyn and was dominant over his 7.0 shutout frames, scattering just three hits while striking out six. The 23-year-old right-hander lowered his ERA to 2.85 across his 110.1 innings with St. Lucie and Brooklyn – the lowest among all qualifying Mets minor leaguers.
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Brooklyn opened the scoring in the bottom of the third after Jaylen Palmer started the frame with a triple and used his wheels to beat a throw to the plate on a ground ball to third from Matt O’Neill that gave Brooklyn a 1-0 lead. Moments later JT Schwartz beat out an infield single. with two outs in the frame, to push home another run and extend the Cyclones’ lead to 2-0.
The ‘Clones added to their lead with a single run in the fifth and added two more in the sixth – including Matt O’Neill’s second RBI of the night to push the lead to 6-0.
Brooklyn rounded out their scoring in the bottom of the eighth after Jaylen Palmer had an RBI double to score Jose Mena before Matt O’Neill added his third RBI of the game with a single that scored Shervyen Newton. William Lugo kept things going with a sacrifice fly before JT Schwartz ripped a double into the right-center field gap to extend Brooklyn’s lead to 9-0.
Wilmington ruined Brooklyn’s shutout effort when they scored an unearned run in the top of the ninth to make the final score 9-1.
Brooklyn and Hudson Valley both won on Thursday evening keeping the Cyclones ½ a game in front of the Renegades in the race for the SAL Northern Division Crown with just nine games left in the regular season.
The Cyclones will square off against the BlueClaws again on Friday Night when they send RHP Dominic Hamel to the mound. Game time is 7:00 PM with gates opening at 6:00 PM.
