Clearwater Threshers Stumble in 10-2 Loss to Blue Jays as Fifth Inning Unravels

Clearwater had the weather. Dunedin had the night.

Thursday night in Clearwater offered perfectly good baseball weather. The Threshers supplied a reminder that admission does not include a perfectly good baseball game.

Dunedin handed Clearwater a 10-2 home loss, turning a tight opening into the kind of evening where the postgame conversation starts well before the game ends. The Threshers scored first. The Blue Jays handled most of the scoring after that.

For Pinellas fans talking baseball around a Clearwater tailgate, watching in St Pete or following along from the beaches, this one had a painfully simple summary: a little early hope, a very loud fifth inning and not nearly enough response. Dunedin fans, naturally, get to tell it with more enthusiasm. That’s the trouble with a local matchup. The other side doesn’t live far enough away.

A lead with a short shelf life

Both clubs went scoreless through the first two innings before Clearwater nudged ahead in the third. Tyler Spangler grounded into a double play, with Cade Climie coming home to make it 1-0.

Not exactly an offensive fireworks show, but a lead counts even when it arrives wearing work boots.

Dunedin erased it in the fourth. Blaine Bullard stole home during an Owen Carapellotti strikeout, tying the game at 1-1. Getting a strikeout and still watching the tying run cross is a particularly irritating piece of baseball accounting.

Then came the fifth, which deserves its own warning label.

Ryan Franden singled home Juan Sanchez for a 2-1 Dunedin lead. With the bases loaded, Bullard grounded into a force out that scored Franden. Rhylan Thomas followed with a single to bring home Raimundo De Los Santos, and Dameury Pena doubled in Bullard and Thomas.

Five runs. A 6-1 deficit. Clearwater’s modest lead had become a distant memory before anyone could get sentimental about it.

The sequence was damaging because Dunedin kept extending it. A run-scoring single became another productive play, then another hit, then the double that made the inning feel less like a rally and more like a demolition appointment.

No brake pedal in the sixth

Dunedin kept pressing. Jake Cook tripled home Franden and De Los Santos in the sixth, pushing the margin to 8-1. Cook then scored on Bullard’s groundout to make it 9-1.

Clearwater did find a late highlight: Nolan Beltran doubled home Spangler in the eighth. It was a useful swing on an otherwise rough night, not the beginning of a rescue operation. The final was 10-2.

Beltran finished 1-for-3 with an RBI, giving the Threshers something worth mentioning without pretending the evening needed a trophy presentation.

On the mound, Sean Youngerman worked 5.0 innings, struck out 5 and allowed 6 hits and 5 earned runs. Dunedin’s Denis Samudio also went 5.0 innings and struck out 5, but held Clearwater to 4 hits and 1 earned run. Same workload, very different damage report.

Cook finished 2-for-5 with a run scored and 2 RBI. His triple helped remove whatever suspense the fifth inning had left behind.

Leave this one at the ballpark

There’s no need to dress this up as a lesson in adversity. Clearwater briefly led, couldn’t contain Dunedin’s lineup and didn’t produce enough offense to make the Blue Jays uncomfortable afterward.

The fifth was the hinge. The sixth kicked the door off.

Whether your baseball routine starts with tailgate talk in Clearwater or ends with friends comparing notes in Dunedin, this result requires very little argument. The Blue Jays did the damage. The Threshers need a better night.

The game details are available for anyone willing to revisit them. Everyone else can consult the Threshers schedule and move forward. No sense letting a bad ballgame claim the whole evening.

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