The Vancouver Canadians can only hope to gain a split of their six-game series against the Hillsboro Hops as they lost 2-1 at Ron Tonkin Field Saturday.
The C’s picked up the first run of the game in the third inning. Rafael Lantigua worked the count full before drawing a walk against Brandon Pfaadt and moved to second when Tanner Morris grounded out to first. Orelvis Martinez drove Lantigua home when he drilled a double to left.
The Hops drew even in the fourth with an RBI double of their own. Nick Fraze was one pitch away from a 1-2-3 inning but Danny Oriente kept things going with a single on an 0-and-2 pitch. A.J. Vukovich then doubled on the next pitch to score Oriente.
Hillsboro scored the winning run in the top of the fifth against Fraze. Leodany Perez reached base on an infield single to third and he would score on a Roman Ruiz double.
C-Notes
Morris had the first Vancouver hit with a ground-rule double to left with one away in the first inning but was left at second base.
Luis De Los Santos made it to first on a throwing error by Ruiz at short to start the second but remained 270 feet away from home.
Martinez’s RBI double in the third was also left on and Davis Schneider‘s leadoff walk in the fifth only made it as far as second on a wild pitch.
The C’s last baserunner came with one out in the ninth when Spencer Horwitz singled to center off Mailon Arroyo in the ninth but De Los Santos and Will Robertson struck out swinging to end the game.
Pfaadt finished with a flourish by retiring the last nine men he faced, the last five by strikeout. That was among his 11 strikeouts over seven innings. Denson Hull added a punchout in a 1-2-3 eight before Arroyo’s two whiffs in the ninth.
Fraze finished one out short of five innings, giving up two runs on five hits and two walks with five strikeouts and six groundouts. He limited the Hops to a walk, a single and a stolen base in the first three innings before being nicked for two runs in the fourth and fifth.
Andrew Bash bailed out Fraze by stranding a pair of runners in the fifth by getting Tristin English to tap one back to the mound. An Oriente base hit was Bash’s lone blemish in 2-1/3 innings and that was erased when Philip Clarke threw out Oriente on a steal attempt of second.
Bash struck out two before giving way to Willy Gaston in the eighth. Gaston plunked English with a pitch and yielded an Oriente single with two outs but struck out Vukovich to escape the jam.
Roither Hernandez allowed a two-out double to Ruiz with two outs in the ninth but Clarke threw out Ruiz trying to steal third. Hernandez struck out one.
Vancouver is now 1-1/2 games behind Hillsboro for fourth place in the High-A West with a record of 37 wins and 46 losses.
C.J. Van Eyk will finish up this six-game series on the hill for Vancouver. Hillsboro hasn’t said who will start for them. First pitch is at 1:05 pm on CanadiansBaseball.com.
C’s Alumni Report
Buffalo was a <a href="http://<!– wp:paragraph –> <p>Buffalo was a 9-3 winner over Lehigh Valley Saturday.</p> 9-3 winner over Lehigh Valley Saturday.
- Richard Ureña – 3/4, HR (8), BB, 3RBI, 2R
- Cullen Large – 0/3, 2BB
- Otto Lopez – 2/4, SB (3), 2R
- Zach Logue – 5.0IP 8H 3R/2ER 1BB 4K HR 5GO (W, 4-2)
- Travis Bergen – 1.0IP 0H 0R/ER 1BB 1K
New Hampshire fell 7-4 to Hartford.
- Kevin Vicuña – 3/5, HR (7), 2R, 2 SB (11)
- Vinny Capra – 0/4, BB, R
- L.J. Talley – 1/3, BB, RBI
- Chavez Young – 1/4, SB (12), RBI
- Chris Bec – 0/3, SB (8)
- Reggie Pruitt – 1/4, R
- Jon Harris – 2.0IP 3H 1R/ER 0BB 2K
- Brandon Eisert – 1.0IP 0H 0R/ER 0BB 1K
- Adrian Hernandez – 2.0IP 0H 0R/ER 1BB 4K
Riley Adams belted his first major league homer in the ninth inning to give Washington a 3-2 win in Atlanta.
Kevin Pillar had a single and Miguel Castro pitched one-third of a scoreless inning and stranded a runner in the New York Mets 5-3 loss to Philadelphia.
Daniel Norris struck out two in a shutout inning and Angel Perdomo pitched two-thirds of a scoreless frame in Milwaukee’s 9-6 loss to San Francisco in 11 innings. Aaron Sanchez pitched two innings of one-run ball for the Giants as the opener.
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