After winning three of five in Oregon earlier this season and winning the series opener at Nat Bailey Stadium Monday night, the Salem-Keizer Volcanoes were looking for at least a split of the season series against the Vancouver Canadians with their second straight win over the C’s.
August 30
Denis Diaz was looking to redeem himself after a rough outing at home against Boise. He took care of business in the first with a 1-2-3 inning but was dinged for two runs in the second on a double, a walk, a single and a sacrifice fly.
The C’s would respond with a run of their own in their half of the second inning against the flame-throwing Melvin Adon, whose fastball was in the mid-to-upper 90 MPH range. Nash Knight singled and moved to second on another base hit by Rodrigo Orozco. Knight would tag up and go to third on a fly ball by Deiferson Barreto but Knight wound up scoring after a throwing error by Volcanoes right fielder Julio Pena. Andres Sotillo extended the inning with a base hit to left to move Orozco to third but Brett Wellman whiffed to end the threat. The C’s would tie the game at 2-2 in the third when Juan Tejada doubled home a Bryan Lizardo two-base hit.
Diaz began the third and fourth frames by uncorking a pitch to the backstop but he kept the Volcanoes off the board by working around a pair of walks in the third before a 1-2-3 frame in the fourth. It was a one-out walk to Manuel Geraldo in the fifth proved to be Diaz’s undoing. Geraldo managed to advance to third on a single by Ashford Fulmer before scoring on a Gio Brusa sacrifice fly to put Salem-Keizer back in the lead.
Zach Jackson entered the game for Diaz in the sixth and walked just one batter in his two-inning stint while striking out a pair. However, Adon got stronger as the game went along as he hit 99, 100 and 103 MPH on the radar gun. Unfortunately, the stadium gun only goes to double digits so it flashed ’00’ and ’03’ instead. The 22 year-old Dominican used some offspeed stuff in the low-80’s to bamboozle the C’s hitters. He struck out the side in the fifth en route to seven strikeouts over six frames.
Griffin Glaude kept it a one-run game with a shutout eighth but gave up a pair of runs in the ninth on a two-out double to right field by Geraldo that Tejada took a questionable route on. Vancouver fought back in the ninth when Knight’s leadoff walk was singled home by Sotillo and Orozco’s infield single to short was cashed in by a base hit from D.J. McKnight. Lizardo would ground out to strand a pair of runners and end the game as the Volcanoes came away with a 5-4 victory.
Radar Gun Rundown
The st
ory of this game was Melvin Adon. His numbers were not very impressive heading into this match-up as he had an ERA over six. Still, he was pumping some serious octane. According to MiLB Gameday, Adon had 15 swinging strikes in his six innings.
Denis Diaz was in the 79-92 MPH range with his two strikeouts recorded at 83 and 79. Zach Jackson had one strikeout at 86 and was in the mid-90’s.
August 31
This Nooner at the Nat was delayed by an hour at the start thanks to Mother Nature and she delayed it again with more rain after the bottom of the second. Couldn’t she have waited another week? It’s not like it never rains in Vancouver after baseball season!
In between the rain drops, the C’s got down to business by laying a five-spot on the Volcanoes in the first inning and led 5-2 before another rain delay. They outscored Salem-Keizer 8-6 the rest of the way for a 13-8 victory. Both Javier Hernandez and Deiferson Barreto both went deep for their second homers of the year. Jacob Anderson was 3-for-5 with three runs scored and Nash Knight was 1-for-3 with two walks and three runs. Juan Tejada had a triple among his two hits.
The winning pitcher was Jackson McClelland, who earned his second ‘W’ of the year with 2-2/3 scoreless innings. Mike Ellenbest gave up two runs in the second inning before the rains came. Andy Ravel had a tough time of it by allowing five runs over 3-1/3 innings. Lefthander Christian Cox made his C’s debut with a one-run ninth, ending the game with a called strike three.
C-Notes
Christian Cox became the third pitcher to don #14 this season for the C’s. Justin Maese and T.J. Zeuch, now with Lansing, were the others. Cox was promoted from Bluefield earlier this week.
Right-handed pitcher Jared Carkuff, first baseman David Jacob and catcher Owen Spiwak are headed to Vancouver from the Gulf Coast Blue Jays according to this story from CanadiansBaseball.com.
The 23 year-old Carkuff was the Jays’ 35th round pick in this year’s draft out of Austin Peay State. He put up an impressive 35-3 K/BB total in 25-1/3 innings in the GCL. The 6-foot-3, 180 pound hurler was 4-0 with seven saves and a 1.42 earned run average.
Jacob, a 21 year-old left-handed hitter, was taken in round 32 this summer from Quincy University. He slashed .304/.392/.472 for an OPS of .864. The 6-foot-4, 225 pounder had nine doubles, six homers and 21 runs batted in and showed a nice batting eye with 21 walks against 24 strikeouts. He was also successful on all three of his stolen base attempts.
Spiwak was selected in the 10th round of the 2015 amateur draft by Toronto. The 6-foot-2, 185 pound native from Mississauga, Ontario batted .293 in his first season in the GCL last year but just .164 in 55 at-bats this year. The Odessa College product will be the second Canadian to join the Canadians and second Ontarian after Burlington’s Mattingly Romanin, who is ending the year on the disabled list.
Looking Ahead
Just two more home games to go for the C’s in 2016. The final night game goes at 7:05 pm this evening with Luis Sanchez listed as the probable starter. Patrick Murphy gets the call in the season finale tomorrow at 1:05. Vancouver is hoping to win the next two games to emerge with a split of the season series against Salem-Keizer.
Hopefully, the weather will hold up for the next two days. If the rainfall from Wednesday reappears Friday afternoon, it won’t take long for the game to get cancelled seeing the C’s have to go to Pasco, Washington to visit the Tri-City Dust Devils while the Volcanoes head back home to host the Boise Hawks for their final games of the season. Fingers crossed that these two games get played before the long fall and winter arrive.
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