The Vancouver Canadians waited until the last possible moment to pull out their first home win of 2019 over the Everett AquaSox. The C’s snatched victory from the jaws of defeat with a 5-4 win in 10 innings over the Frogs at Nat Bailey Stadium Thursday afternoon. That snapped Everett’s five game winning streak north of the border.
Everett put two runs up on the board in the second inning off Nick Fraze. A leadoff walk to Cesar Izturis Jr. and back-to-back doubles from Cash Gladfelter and Cade Marlowe did the damage for the visitors.
Izturis ignited another rally in the fourth for the AquaSox off Jared DiCesare with an infield single to short before managing to steal second base with two outs. It appeared Izturis was going to be thrown out by Brett Wright behind the plate but Luis De Los Santos could not secure the ball in his glove when he tried to go for the tag. Miguel Perez kept the inning going with another single to short. Perez took off for second and drew Wright’s throw to second and Izturis was able to steal home to make it 3-0 Everett.
After being held down for the first five innings, Vancouver forced the exit of Vancouver, Washington native Damon Cassetta-Stubbs in the sixth in the form of leadoff walks by Tanner Morris and Yorman Rodriguez. New AquaSox manager and North Vancouver, BC native Louis Boyd elected to bring in Garrett Westburg from the bullpen and after retiring the first man he faced, he was lit up for a three-run home run to right field by Will Robertson to tie the game at 3-3.
DiCesare retired the last batter he faced to start the seventh before Grayson Huffman took over on the mound. After getting ahead 0-2, Huffman surrendered a triple to center to DeAires Moses before Patrick Frick singled up the middle to put Everett back out in front. Connor Hoover doubled to left to push Frick up to third but Huffman rung up Trent Tingelstad and got Izturis to line out to left to keep it a one-run game.
Slovakian-born, Alberta-raised left-hander Adam Macko retired the C’s in order in the seventh and survived a leadoff walk to Morris in the eighth. Huffman worked around a Cade Marlowe one-out double in the eighth and Parker Caracci faced the minimum in the ninth after Frick was caught stealing second by Wright after a one-out walk to conclude the inning.
Kipp Rollings entered the game for Everett in the ninth and got two quick outs by striking out McGregory Contreras on four pitches and getting Cameron Eden to pop out to catcher Brennon Kaleiwahea on the next offering. On a 3-2 pitch, Wright saved the day by hammering a ball down over the left field foul pole to even things up at 4-4.
In the top of the 10th inning, Hoover was placed at second base and was joined on the base paths by Tingelstad after being walked by Caracci. Izturis advanced the runners 90 feet with a sacrifice bunt to the mound that Caracci threw to De Los Santos covering the first base bag from second. An intentional pass was issued to Gladfelter to load the bases but Caracci got out of the jam by inducing a ground ball to De Los Santos who flipped the ball to Morris at short to turn a 4-6-3 double play.
De Los Santos started the bottom half of the 10th inning at second but could not advance after Adrian Ramos grounded out after trying to get a bunt down and Morris struck out. Ronny Brito—who was not in the starting lineup—drilling a 1-0 offering from Rollings up the middle. Perez could not field the ball cleanly in center field and that ensured De Los Santos would cross the pentagon uncontested to give the C’s their third walk-off win of the season.
Radar Gun Rundown
Fraze threw pitches from 79-91 miles per hour to cover the entire 80’s spectrum on the velocity bingo card. He recorded strikeouts of 91, 82, 84. DiCesare checked in at 77-82, 84-90 and 92 and registered strikeouts of 77, 89 and 89. Huffman reached 88-92 and 94 and was at 80, 82 and came up with strikeouts at 80 and 91. Caracci was at 80-82 on the low end and up to 86, 92, 93 and 95 with Ks of 91 and 93 to earn his second win of the year.
C-Notes
Brito was the hero of the day after he was pressed into service at third base. Jesus Lopez fouled a ball off his shin in the third inning. He was down on his hands and knees for a while for resuming his at-bat which ended in an inning-ending flyout to strand a Rodriguez two-out base hit. Lopez remained at third base for the fourth inning before Brito manned the hot corner to begin the fifth.
Lopez had doubled to center field just below the C’s Diamond Vision scoreboard for Vancouver’s first hit of the day with two away in the first. Robertson drew a walk but Contreras struck out to strand Lopez and Robertson.
Frick smashed a one-out single off DiCesare that got by Brito at third and tried to expand his extra-base resume by going for second but Ramos nailed Frick from left field for a 7-4 putout. Hoover followed with a single but DiCesare got out of the inning without further incident in his Nat Bailey Stadium debut.
Another piece of overzealous base running by Everett came back to haunt them again in the sixth. DiCesare walked Gladfelter and Marlowe bunted his way aboard but DiCesare was able to get Gladfelter as he went too far around the second base bag. Morris applied the tag on Gladfelter to complete a 1-6 putout.
The C’s will be out of town for the rest of July and will not return until Thursday, August 8 when they host Everett once again. Monty’s Mounties will embark on a 10-game road trip that will take them to Spokane, Boise and Tri-City.
The road trip will be longer for a select few members of the Canadians as the Northwest League-Pioneer League All-Star will be played at Boise Memorial Stadium Tuesday, August 6.
The series in Spokane begins Friday evening with a 6:30 pm first pitch at Avista Stadium. Rob Fai will have the play-by-play on Sportsnet 650 and CanadiansBaseball.com.
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