Late double dooms Marauders

BRADENTON -- Danny Diekroeger was sitting dead-red for Jose Regalado's first pitch.

The Palm Beach third baseman's mighty cut lifted the ball to deep center field over the head of Pablo Reyes.

The double was the 10th of 11 hits recorded for the Cardinals on Thursday at McKechnie Field in front of 891 fans.

But it was also the dagger.

"Right down the middle," Bradenton Marauders manager Michael Ryan said. "Trying to spin some stuff, maybe throw around him a little bit with a base open."

Diekroeger's back-breaking two-run double in the top of the 10th inning earned Palm Beach a 3-0 Florida State League victory over the Marauders.

"It stings, absolutely, late in the game but you think about the opportunities that you had early in the game, we just didn't get it done," Ryan said. "So maybe it doesn't have to go 10 innings, if we do a couple things differently in the early part of the game. We'll come back and play this game (Friday)."

Diekroeger entered Thursday's series finale tied for the FSL lead with six doubles. He tacked on two more in the 2 hour, 22 minute game that gave Palm Beach a 2-1 series victory.

The first double from Diekroeger came in the top of the sixth inning when he drilled a ball to right-center field. Casey Grayson followed with a walk.

That prompted a mound visit from Bradenton pitching coach Jeff Johnson for starting pitcher Alex McRae. The right-hander quickly got the message of bearing down. He caught Blake Drake looking at a third strike, before inducing a fly out and ground out to escape the jam.

"It just gives you a little men

tal break," McRae said. "Your mind stops racing. You just try to slow the game down."

McRae found a groove by matching zeroes with Palm Beach starter Jacob Evans. For McRae, his most effective pitch was a two-seam fastball that caused eight groundouts. Still, McRae said it's tough pitching in a game where one mistake could result in the deciding run.

"You try not to think about it, just because you don't want to try to do too much," McRae said. "You just got to stay within yourself and stick to the game plan."

That's because Evans was equal, if not better, to the task. The left-hander mixed, matched and located everything he tossed in breaking several Marauders' bats.

The lone potential hiccup wasn't even self-induced for Evans. He retired nine straight when Kevin Newman reached on shortstop Oscar Mercado's throwing error, who committed a second error on Kevin Kramer's infield single to put runners on the corners with two outs in the sixth inning.

Evans, though, struck Jordan Luplow out to escape unscathed.

"He was trying to just locate away, locate away, locate away and then when he'd make a mistake we just couldn't do anything with it," Ryan said.

Evans' 96-pitch gem wrapped after 7 2/3 innings where he allowed four hits and struck out six without any walks or runs allowed. Logan Hill knocked him from the game with a two-out single in the eighth inning. Silfredo Garcia (1-1) replaced Evans, providing an equally tough task to generate offense against.

Then in the extra frame, Palm Beach's bats woke up against Regalado, who was working his fourth inning in relief. Palm Beach's Andrew Sohn led off with a single, before Darren Seferina ripped a single to right field to put runners on the corners with nobody out. A ground out kept it scoreless, before Diekroeger's two-run double.

The M's hit the road with a three-game series in Jupiter, before returning to Bradenton on Monday against St. Lucie.

Jason Dill, sports reporter, can be reached at 745-7017. Follow him on Twitter @Jason__Dill and like his Facebook page at Jason Dill Bradenton Herald.

This story was originally published April 28, 2016 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Late double dooms Marauders ."