The Vancouver Canadians defeated the Hillsboro Hops 2-1 in 10 innings at Hillsboro Ballpark on Saturday.
The C’s commenced the scoring in the top of the first inning against Hops starter Ricardo Yan. A pair of walks to Dasan Brown and Nick Goodwin sandwiched a Ryan McCarty single to center field to load the bases. One out later, Jamari Baylor worked the count to ball four to bring home Brown with the game’s first run. That was all Vancouver would get as Glenn Santiago rapped into a 4-6-3 double play on Yan’s 29th pitch of the inning.
Hillsboro would tie it up against C’s starter Rafael Sánchez in the fifth. Christian Cerda singled to center to start the frame, went to second on a wild pitch and scored on a José Fernandez base hit to right.
The next run came in the top of the 10th inning as Vancouver retook the lead against Hops reliever Kyle Amendt. Placed runner and pinch runner Estiven Machado—taking over for Jean Arnaez—was pushed to third on a Jommer Hernández groundout to second after Amendt got ahead in the count 0-2. Jace Bohrofen also fell behind in the count at two strikes before hitting a hard smash to second that Manny Peña knocked down but he could only get the out at first as Machado raced home with the decisive tally.
C-Notes
Sánchez was slicing and dicing his way through the Hops lineup in the early going. He struck out Neyfy Castillo to end the first inning and got Peña looking in the second. Juan Corniel was the first batter to reach safely for Hillsboro with a one-out single to center but Hernández picked him off. Sánchez faced the minimum nine hitters over the first three frames by fanning Wyatt Crenshaw.
Hillsboro got two runners aboard against Sánchez in the fourth with a one-out single to right field by Gavin Conticello and an infield knock to short by Castillo. The runners were stranded when Sánchez struck out Peña. The Cuban righthander worked a 1-2-3 sixth inning to finish his day.
Anders Tolhurst sat down all six hitters he faced, striking out Corniel and Crenshaw to wrap up the eighth.
Josh Mollerus was brought in for the ninth and overcame a two-out walk to Castillo to push the game into the 10th inning.
Mollerus ran into trouble in the bottom half of the 10th when he lost Peña on a 3-2 pitch for a leadoff walk. It looked like Christian Cerda was going to join Peña and the placed runner at second Kevin Sim when he appeared to grazed by a Mollerus pitch. However, home plate umpire Tim Barreras ruled Cerda fouled it off when he was attempting to bunt the pitch. On the next pitch, Cerda got the bunt down but Mollerus got to the ball and just threw out Sim on a force play at third. Replays on MiLB.TV showed it was a bang-bang play that could have gone either way. With Jean Walters in to pinch-run for Cerda, Mollerus locked it down by striking out Fernandez and Corniel swinging to pick up his first Northwest League win.
The C’s only had one baserunner against Yan from the second to fourth innings and that was a McCarty walk with one out in the top of the third. The Hops righty retired nine of 10 hitters, six of them by strikeout in that stretch. Yan would leave the game after a one-out single to center by Nick Goodwin in the sixth. Alec Baker clipped Baylor in the left arm with two outs but Santiago lined out to short for out number three. Santiago had a tough day at the dish as he was robbed of a hit when Castillo ran down a ball in the left field corner in the fourth.
The top of the seventh saw Hernández single to center off Baker with two outs. That was before a scary incident when Brown was hit above the brim of the batting by Baker. Jace Bohrofen replaced Brown on the base paths and took over in center field in the bottom of the frame.
Prior to driving in the winning run, Bohrofen made his presence felt with the glove with a diving catch to rob Fernandez of a hit in the eighth.
The C’s announced a trio of transactions on Saturday. Outfielder Jaden Rudd was placed on the seven-day injured list retroactive to May 22 and righthander Geison Urbaez went to the 7-Day IL retroactive to May 23.
Replacing Urbaez will be Connor O’Halloran as the 21-year-old lefty from Mississauga, Ontario has been called up from Low-A Dunedin. Toronto’s fifth-round pick out of Michigan in the 2023 MLB Draft has won seven of his 10 decisions with the D-Jays over his two years, including a 4-2 mark with a 3.13 earned run average and a 45-13 strikeout/walk total over 37-1/3 innings this season. The 6-foot-2 hurler is the son of former Toronto Blue Jays farmhand and former Florida Marlins catcher Greg O’Halloran. The younger O’Halloran will double the Mississauga content on the C’s roster as he joins fellow Mississaugan and position coach Ashley Stephenson. The Greater Toronto Area content is also tripled in size with Oakville, Ontario native Dasan Brown also in the fold.
The Canadians hope to end the weekend with their third straight win and will go with Lazaro Estrada in a 1:05 p.m. start. Chris Georges will man the mic on CanadiansBaseball.com. The game is also on MiLB.TV.
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