The Vancouver Canadians walked off the Tri-City Dust Devils 3-2 in 10 innings at Nat Bailey Stadium on Thursday.
The Canadians struck first in the first inning when Dasan Brown worked a leadoff walk from Ryan Costieu. The Oakville Flash was able to take his time around the bases when Je’Von Ward whacked a two-out, two-run homer to right field.
The Dust Devils responded with their first run in the top of the second. Caleb Ketchup lined a single to left off C’s starter Connor O’Halloran. The condiment-named Dust Devil stole second, tagged up to go to third on an Arol Vera fly ball to center and scored on a Landon Wallace double to right field after Ward slipped and fell.
Tri-City would tie the game in the seventh. Rafael Ohashi walked Ketchup who swiped second again. It looked like Ohashi was going to get out of the inning when he got the next two men, striking out Wallace looking. The righthander then lost the strike zone as he issued free passes to Joe Redfield, Adrian Placencia and Werner Blakely to take Ketchup out of the third base bottle to the plate for the tying run. Naswell Paulino stranded the bases loaded by getting Sonny DiChiara to fly out to center.
The Canadians would end it just two pitches into the bottom of the 10th. Placed runner Cutter Coffey raced home from second when Placencia booted a Jackson Hornung grounder at short, tagging Ryan Langford with a tough-luck loss.
Bo Bonds got the win in his C’s debut for pitching a scoreless top of the 10th.
C-Notes
The Dust Devils threatened to hang a crooked number on O’Halloran in the first inning. Redfield got aboard on an infield single after O’Halloran could not field the ball cleanly. The Irishman struck out Placencia but Redfield pilfered second base. A walk to Blakely and a passed ball by Nic Deschamps resulted in runners at the corners. Blakely then swiped second to join Redfield in scoring position. DiChiara walked to fill the pillows but O’Halloran fanned Williams and retired Juan Flores on a liner to a leaping Coffey at third.
O’Halloran struck out Williams to strand a one-out double off the center field wall by DiChiara which almost left the yard in the third. The Mississauga southpaw finished up strong by whiffing Ketchup to start a spotless fourth.
Chay Yeager was brought in for the C’s in the bottom of the fifth and yielded a Redfield base hit to left. He would only face three hitters in the frame as he struck out Placencia looking before getting a 4-6-3 double play ball from Blakely. Estiven Machado made a diving stop on the ball at second before flipping the ball to Goodwin at short who relayed the ball to Orf who did a nice job to snare the low throw and keep his foot on the bag to convert the twin-killing. Yeager finished off the sixth in quick order, getting a strikeout from Williams. Surrounding that strikeout was a couple of groundouts to third in which Coffey unleashed a pair of bullets to get DiChiara and Flores.
Paulino did yeoman’s work to keep the game tied for Vancouver. He struck out Williams and worked around a one-out walk to Flores in the eighth. The lefthander escaped a jam in the ninth which started with a Wallace leadoff walk, a Redfield sacrifice bunt that reached first on a throwing error by Deschamps and another sac bunt to the mound by Placencia. Paulino struck out Blakely for the second out and after DiChiara was intentionally walked, he got Williams to ground out to second.
Mac McCroskey was the pinch-runner at second base to start the top of the 10th as he subbed in for Williams. He tagged up to go to third on a fly ball to left. Victor Arias made a strong throw on the money at third and Coffey kept the tag on McCroskey after he hopped off the bag. Umpire Trey Ward did not see it that way and called McCroskey safe, drawing the ire of an irate Brent Lavallee. McCroskey would be thrown out at the plate when Ketchup hit a ground ball to third where Coffey made a strong throw to Jacob Sharp—who had just entered the game behind the dish—and he applied the tag to get McCroskey. Ketchup swiped his fourth base of the night to move into scoring position but Bonds got Vera to fly out to center.
The C’s stranded a pair of runners in the first after Ward’s homer. Goodwin belted a double to center and Brennan Orf drew a walk before Costieu retired Arias on a fly ball to right.
Another two runners were left on in the fourth. Nick Mondak took over for Costieu with one away and got a ground ball to second that was botched by Ketchup, allowing Orf to reach base. Arias got a walk but Deschamps and Machado struck out looking and swinging respectively to strike out the side after Costieu fanned Goodwin.
Against Jake Smith in the seventh, Arias drew a leadoff walk but was thrown out by Flores on a 2-6 play. Machado also heard ball four but that was it for the C’s in that frame.
A Hornung one-out single to left and a Ward walk led to Smith leaving the game. Glenn Albanese Jr. got Goodwin to pop out to second before fanning Orf on a foul tip.
The eighth inning started in strange fashion. Arias hit a ground ball to center that went through for a base hit. For some reason, the shortstop Placencia went the wrong way and Arias got aboard. Though Arias picked an offspeed pitch to go on, he was thrown out stealing by Flores 2-6. Deschamps then picked off his first Northwest League hit as he doubled off the center field wall. Marcos De La Rosa pinch-ran for the Quebec City native and ran to third after a Machado ground out to first. A Brown walk and defensive indifference allowed Brown to get to second but Coffee went down swinging.
The C’s and Double-D’s go at it again on Friday afternoon at The Nat. Kendry Rojas will let it rip for Vancouver at 1:05 p.m. The game is on CanadiansBaseball.com and MiLB.TV.
Grant Rogers will get the start on Saturday for Monty’s Mounties to mark his Northwest League debut.
Radar Gun Rundown
Connor O’Halloran checked in at 75-91 miles per hour with strikeouts at 78, 84 and 80. Chay Yeager had strikeouts of 82 and 89 and was up to 95. Rafael Ohashi was at 82-94 with a strikeout at 84. Naswell Paulino was at 78-89 with a strikeout of 88. Bo Bonds was at 84-92.
C-Tweets
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