The Vancouver Canadians trounced the Tri-City Dust Devils 10-4 at Gesa Stadium on Tuesday.
The C’s shook off a six-day layoff with two runs in the top of the first inning against Jorge Machecho. A leadoff walk by Dasan Brown and a one-out free pass to Nick Goodwin came around to score on a Jackson Hornung single to right and a throwing error by Jadiel Sánchez.
Tri-City would tie the game at 2-2 against C’s starter Geison Urbaez in the bottom of the second. Andy Blake singled to third, stole second base and came around to score on a Kevin Bruggeman double to right. Bruggeman swiped third and scored on a groundout to third by Joe Stewart.
The Canadians broke the tie in the top of the fourth. Jeff Wehler was hit by a Macheco pitch to start the inning and moved to second on a passed ball. With one out, Glenn Santiago sharply singled to center and Jommer Hernández lofted a sacrifice fly to right for Wehler to complete his trip around the bases. Brown blooped a single to right to get Santiago over to third and went on to steal second base. That steal came during. a 13-pitch at-bat by Ryan McCarty who won the battle with a single to left off Macheco to score Santiago and Brown to make it 5-2 Vancouver.
The C’s scored again in the sixth against Jake Smith. Brown walked and pilfered second before coming home on a McCarty double to left. McCarty took off for third and Smith waited him out and appeared to have a pickoff throw to third all lined up. Instead, Smith’s throw went off the glove of Ben Gobbel and the Dust Devils third baseman was charged with an error, allowing McCarty to cross the plate.
Vancouver struck again in the seventh against Quinton Martinez. Wehler started another rally with a leadoff walk, swiped second, tagged up to go to third on a Brennan Orf flyout to center and scored on a wild pitch which also resulted in a walk for Hernández.
Tri-City got their final two runs in the seventh against Josh Mollerus. A leadoff single to left by Jorge Ruiz was followed by a one-out homer to left by Gobbel.
The Canadians rounded out the scoring in the ninth against Carlos Espinosa. They loaded the bases with nobody out on an Orf walk and two singles to right by Santiago and Hernández. A 6-4 fielder’s choice by Brown scored Orf with the ninth run of the night. A McCarty sac fly to right scored Santiago for run number 10.
C-Notes
It was another ump show starring home plate umpire Spencer Kim on Tuesday. He ejected Espinosa for an inside pitch to Nick Goodwin in the top of the ninth. There was some question that Goodwin’s jersey might have been grazed in the chest area but that was apparently not the case. The 2-1 pitch was nowhere near Goodwin’s head so the ejection was a curious one to say the least. Tri-City manager Willie Romero came out to argue and he was tossed from the game as well. When the game resumed, Goodwin took the next pitch from Jenrry Gonzalez for ball four. Goodwin was the last baserunner of the night for Vancouver.
Grayson Thurman was the winner in relief with 1-1/3 shutout innings, stranding a runner for Urbaez and striking out two batters.
Lefty Naswell Paulino, Anders Tolhurst and Chay Yeager pitched the final 2-2/3 innings of scoreless with Paulino striking out one and Tolhurst fanning two.
All the best to 2019, 2021 and 2022 Canadians pitcher Gabriel Ponce who was released by the Toronto Blue Jays on April 26. The righthander was drafted by Toronto in the 28th round in 2019 out of Arizona Western College. He began his pro career with the C’s in 2019. He split 2021 with Dunedin and Vancouver/Hillsboro where he won two games and recorded a save to go along with a 2.65 earned run average over 17 innings. He opened the 2022 season with the C’s and put together four shutout innings over two appearances and recorded a save. Ponce toggled between Double-A New Hampshire and Triple-A Buffalo in 2022 and 2023. He was back at New Hampshire this season and made just one appearance, giving up a run but striking out two in 1-1/3 innings. He was placed on the Development on April 23, three days before his release. Just having turned 25 years old on Monday, Ponce finishes his Blue Jays organizational tenure with 10 wins, a 4.26 ERA and 262 strikeouts over 213-1/3 innings. All the best to Gabriel in his future endeavours.
The Canadians and Dust Devils have a quick turnaround on Wednesday as they play at 1:30 p.m. Ryan Jennings will get the start for Monty’s Mounties. You can catch the game on CanadiansBaseball.com with Tyler Zickel calling the play-by-play. The game is also on MiLB.TV.
C-Tweets
C's Plus Baseball | A Vancouver Canadians Blog 