FSL1 Palm Beach Cardinals

Bolivar Blasts Cardinals to 7-3 Victory

Published on August 1, 2011 under Florida State League (FSL1)
Palm Beach Cardinals News Release


JUPITER, Fla. - Domnit Bolivar hit his second homer in as many games and Carlos Martinez struck out eight through six innings to lead the Palm Beach Cardinals (21-18, 50-58) to a 7-3 victory over the Clearwater Threshers (19-19, 58-49) Monday night in the finale of a four-game series at Roger Dean Stadium.

With the win the Cardinals finish with a 2-2 series split with Clearwater and are now 1.5 games out of first place behind the Bradenton Marauders.

Martinez (3-1, 4.45 ERA) held the Threshers hitless through the first four innings before allowing a total of three earned runs on the night, giving up five hits and two walks while punching out a season-high (with Palm Beach) eight. The 19-year-old righty, in his first professional season out of the Dominican Republic, has now won his last two starts after enduring a rough home outing July 20. Martinez was rated as the third-best prospect in the Cardinals' organization coming into the season by Baseball America.

Bolivar began the scoring in the first by cracking a one-out single, stealing second base, moving to third on a groundout and coming home on a two-out RBI-double from Kyle Conley. Rainel Rosario topped Conley's hit with a run-scoring triple as the next batter to give Palm Beach and early 2-0 lead.

Xavier Scruggs came through later in the fourth inning with a two-out double to right and was rewarded with a run-scoring single from Luis De La Cruz to put the Cards up 3-0. Scruggs, who leads the team in homers and is second in RBI, finished the night 1-for-3 with two runs after coming into the game riding a 1-for-25 skid in his last 12 games.

Clearwater finally broke through off the hard-throwing Martinez in the fifth with a leadoff single from Brandon Tripp, who was subsequently joined on base thanks to a walk to Travis Mattair. Martinez recorded two quick outs before giving up consecutive RBI-singles to Brian Gump and Jiwan James to breakup the shutout and draw the score to 3-2.

That one-run lead lasted just two batters into the bottom of the fifth, however, as Bolivar followed a Greg Garcia walk with a moon-shot to deep left that put Palm Beach up 5-2. Bolivar now has five homers on the season with Palm Beach and also hit one during his time spent with Class-AA Springfield as part of the first cycle in team history June 10.

The teams once again traded runs in the sixth, this time with single tallies on a Darin Ruff homer for Clearwater and another Bolivar RBI-hit for Palm Beach. Adam Melker added a RBI-single to right-center in the eighth to cap the 7-3 Cardinals' victory.

Chris Corrigan took over for Martinez in the seventh and fired two scoreless innings while Keith Butler put two men on in the ninth but escaped unscathed for another scoreless outing. Clearwater starter Brody Colvin (2-6, 4.25 ERA) suffered the loss.

Bolivar finished the night 3-for-4 with two runs, three RBI and a stolen base.

Palm Beach will enjoy a rare day off tomorrow before hitting the road Wednesday to begin a three-game series at the Charlotte Stone Crabs. Lefty Tyler Lyons (4-3, 4.45 ERA) is scheduled to pitch for the Cardinals against southpaw Kyle Lobstein (7-8, 3.93 ERA) for the Stone Crabs.

For more information on the Palm Beach Cardinals, Class-A Advanced affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals, please call (561) 775-1818 or visit www.palmbeachcardinals.com . For tickets and more information regarding Roger Dean Stadium, please visit www.rogerdeanstadium.com .

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