The Vancouver Canadians were walked off by the Hillsboro Hops 4-3 at Ron Tonkin Field on Friday.
The C’s had two runners on against Hops starter Spencer Giesting. A throwing error by Juan Corniel allowed Dasan Brown to reach first base as David Martin could not come up with the low throw but Corniel started a 6-4-3 double play off the bat of Josh Kasevich. Alex De Jesús had Vancouver’s first hit of the night by lining a single to right field and stole second base but that was far as he would get.
Canadians hurler Hunter Gregory sat down the first two men he faced. The righthander struck out Tommy Troy but Martin lined a ball off Gregory’s right foot. Gregory stayed in the game and gave up a base hit to center off Christian Cerda to put runners at the corners before Andrew Pintar struck out.
Giesting and Gregory turned in perfect innings in the second but each of them gave up a run in the third. Brown walked with two outs, went to second on a wild pitch and came home on a Kasevich knock to right. Kasevich also stole second but was left on base.
The Hops would tie the game when Troy homered to center off Gregory with two outs. Martin singled and Cerda walked with a wild pitch in between but Gregory struck out Pintar looking for out number three.
The Canadians took the lead right back when Cade Doughty launched his 13th home run of the year to left field on Giesting’s first pitch. Jeff Wehler and Jommer Hernández both walked with outs but the Hops lefty would strike out the side.
Anders Tolhurst relieved Gregory in the top of the fourth and his first eight pitches were strikes. Josh Day took a strategic time out to throw Tolhurst’s rhythm off and it worked as he was able to draw a walk. Tolhurst would strand Day when Corniel flew out to center.
The C’s managed just one hit against Giesting in the fifth and that was a one-out single to left by Kasevich.
The Hops would take advantage of Tolhurst’s control problem in the bottom of the fifth. Manuel Peña had a leadoff single to right. An errant pickoff throw and a Hernández passed ball were in the mix that saw Tolhurst walk Troy, Martin and Cerda to bring in Peña. Pintar then drove one deep to center field where he robbed near the fence by Brown but that sacrifice fly brought in Troy to give the Hops the lead. Lefthander Ian Churchill took over for Tolhurst and despite a wild pitch and a walk to Kevin Graham, Churchill got the final two outs, including an inning-ending strikeout of Day.
Listher Sosa was the first Hops reliever of the night and overcame a couple of one-out infield singles to short and third by Ryan McCarty and Wehler respectively. Churchill worked a 1-2-3 frame to give both teams zeros on the linescore for the sixth inning.
The Canadians managed to tie the game in the seventh with a one-out rally. Kasevich singled to center field, De Jesús was drilled in the left arm by Sosa before Doughty blooped a single to center to score Kasevich.
Churchill was relieved by Conor Larkin in the top of the eighth and worked around a Martin leadoff single to center and a wild pitch with a pair of punchouts, getting Cerda and Pintar looking.
Hillsboro lefty Carlos Meza plunked Estiven Machado on the left foot and Brown in the back with two outs but the C’s could not make Meza pay for it.
Larkin yielded a two-out knock to right by Corniel before sending the game to the ninth.
A one-out walk by Doughty in the ninth was erased when Meza induced a 6-4-3 double play from Gabby Martinez.
In the bottom of the ninth, lefty Cooper Benson was on the mound for the Canadians and surrendered a one-out single to left by Martin but he got the three outs he needed, including a strikeout of Cerda, to send the game past regulation.
Devonte Brown pinch-ran for Martinez to begin the top of the 10th. McCarty walked and pinch-hitter Michael Turconi drew a one-out free pass to extend his on-base streak to 31 games after replacing Hernández at the dish. The C’s would leave the bases filled.
With Lyle Lin catching and Devonte Brown in right, their stay on the field was not long. Junior Franco led off the bottom of the 10th with a double to right field off Benson to score the placed runner Pintar for the walk-off win.
C-Notes
The Canadians and Hops meet again at The Tonk for a 7:05 p.m. first pitch. Rafael Sánchez gets the start for Vancouver. The game can be streamed on CanadiansBaseball.com with Tyler Zickel and can be viewed at MiLB.TV. Pat Gallagher will make his C’s debut with the start for Sunday’s series finale.
2022-2023 C’s reliever Connor Cooke has been promoted from Double-A New Hampshire to Triple-A Buffalo. Cooke started this season with the C’s and put up a 2.89 earned run average over 9-1/3 innings while striking out 19 batters and walking only three. With the Fisher Cats, Cooke posted a 46-7 K/BB total in 24-2/3 innings while going 1-2 with a 4.38 ERA and three saves. The 24-year-old righthander was Toronto’s 10th-round pick in 2021 out of Louisiana-Lafayette.
C-Tweets
This instalment of C-Tweets is al about Davis Schneider. He cleared the Green Monster in Fenway Park for a home run in his first major league at-bat and followed up his two-hit debut with three more hits on Saturday to spark the Toronto Blue Jays to a pair of wins and a series victory against the Boston Red Sox.
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