Jenkins, Houghton Power Mussels over Cardinals 6-2
June 6, 2025 - Florida State League (FSL)
Fort Myers Mighty Mussels News Release
FORT MYERS, Fla. - Walker Jenkins and Maddux Houghton both homered in the Fort Myers Mighty Mussels' 6-2 victory over the Palm Beach Cardinals on Friday night at Hammond Stadium.
In a tie game in the seventh inning, Twins No. 1 prospect Walker Jenkins blasted a go-ahead, two-run homer to right field to give the Mussels' the lead 4-2. The homer left Jenkins' bat at 100.7 mph.
Fort Myers (25-30) took an early lead off the bat of Maddux Houghton, who hammered a solo home run to straight away center field in the second inning to put the Mussels ahead early 1-0.
For the second time in as many nights, Palm Beach (25-29) responded to a Fort Myers run immediately. The Cardinals tied the game 1-1 on a Deniel Ortiz RBI single in the top of the third inning off Mussels' starter Michael Ross.
The score remained knotted until the top of the fifth, when Cardinals' catcher Rainiel Rodriguez laced a single through the left side to give Palm Beach a 2-1 lead.
Ross exited after the single and finished the night having tossed 4.2 innings, allowing a pair of runs on five hits, while issuing one walk and striking out three.
Tyler Stasiowski replaced Ross with two outs in the fifth, and got the final out of the frame, before tossing a scoreless sixth.
In the top of the seventh, Brennan Oxford (1-0) made his Hammond Stadium debut, spinning a pair of scoreless innings.
Still trailing by one in the seventh inning, the Mussels' mounted a comeback. Miguel Briceno walked to lead off the inning and stole second to get into scoring position. After moving to third on a groundout, Briceno scored on a throwing error by Palm Beach third baseman Ortiz, tying the game 2-2. Jenkins then delivered the go-ahead homer off Conor Steinbaugh (0-1).
Fort Myers added a pair of insurance runs in the eighth. Houghton drove in his second run of the game, as he doubled and allowed Caleb McNeely to score.
Later in the inning, Ricardo Pena tacked on a run with a sacrifice fly to score Houghton and make it 6-2 Fort Myers.
Ruddy Gomez slammed the door with a pair of strikeouts in a scoreless ninth.
Game five of the Mussels' series against the Cardinals is set for Saturday at 6:05 p.m. at Hammond Stadium. Twins No. 13 prospect Dasan Hill (0-0, 1.80) toes the rubber for Fort Myers, squaring off against Braden Davis (1-0, 3.21) for Palm Beach. Coverage begins at 5:45 p.m. on the Mighty Mussels Baseball Network.
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