The St. Lucie Mets avoided a late scare from the Lakeland Flying Tigers and won 5-4 on Friday night at First Data Field lead by starting pitcher Walker Lockett and right fielder Quinn Brodey.

The Mets built a 5-0 lead over the middle three innings. All five runs tonight were scored on two-out hits against Flying Tigers starter Jesus Rodriguez.

With two outs in the fourth inning and first baseman Jeremy Vasquez on base after a hit by pitch it was shortstop Cody Bohanek who put the Mets on the board first with an RBI double hit opposite field. Third baseman Blaker Tiberi then followed with an opposite field RBI single to score Bohanek to make it 2-0.

The following inning Manny Rodriguez ripped a run-scoring single to bring home Quinn Brodey, who was on base all night, to give the Mets a 3-0 lead after five.

Carlos Cortes later extended his hitting streak to 10 games with a RBI double in the sixth to make it 4-0.  Below is video of the hit.

Quinn Brodey would follow with a RBI single to score Cortes and give the Mets what was thought to be a commanding 5-0 lead. Brodey went 4 for 4 on the night.

Blake Tiberi went 2-for-5 with a run scored and a RBI bringing up his batting average to .281 which leads the team.

Bohanek would hit a second double in the sixth inning and ended the night going 2 for 4 with a RBI.

All nine Mets reached base tonight thanks to both Jeremy Vasquez and Matt Winaker being hit by pitches and a Nick Meyer walk while otherwise going hitless as a trio.

On the pitching side the night belonged to starter Walker Lockett. Lockett, acquired this past offseason in the Kevin Plawecki trade with Cleveland, was making his second start for St. Lucie after starting the year on the Syracuse Mets injured list. Locket was impressive throughout, hitting 94 MPH on the stadium radar and recording all four of his strikeouts tonight on his off speed pitches ranging from 81 to 89 MPH. Below is video of three of his recorded strikeouts.

Walker Lockett showed command over all his pitches the entire 5 innings throwing 44 of his 59 total pitches for strikes through 5 scoreless allowing only 3 hits, 0 ER, 0 BB and 4 Ks.

Lockett was relieved by 24 year old right hander Carlos Hernandez, who threw 2 hitless innings allowing just one walk. Hernandez was sitting low 90s, topping 93 MPH on radar with an assortment of low 80s off speed pitches inducing a lot of fly balls.

The bullpen then got shaky in the eighth inning.  Luc Rennie came on and induced a groundout and fly out to start in the inning. Rennie would then go on to walk consecutive batters and was later removed in favor of lefty Andrew Mitchell. Mitchell himself walked a batter to load the bases and then allowed a bases clearing double to first baseman Nick Ames cutting the lead to 5-3.

Mitchell would come back out for the ninth getting a fly out to start things off but later allowing three straight singles to load the bases. Yet another pitching change as righty Ezequiel Zabaleta, just recently called up from Low A Columbia, was asked to put out the fire.  Zabeleta allowed a sac fly to the first batter for the second out.  Opposing second baseman Kody Clemens gave it a ride to deep right field but the ball park held it in and right fielder Quinn Brodey made the catch for the final out securing the close victory.

Of note I noticed a very impressive mid to upper 70s breaking ball from Mitchell but he appeared to have some issues with control. His FB topped 93 MPH on radar. Below is video of his recorded strikeout on that impressive off speed pitch.

The win puts the Mets back over .500 at 24-23.

Full box score here.

These same teams will play again on Saturday. First pitch is set for 6:30 pm. It will be Nickelodeon Night with the Mets wearing special SpongeBob Square Pants jerseys. Fans can bid on the game worn jerseys by downloading the LiveSource app for free. There will also be postgame fireworks.