Blood Throws Tribe For Loss Post Falls Native, Ex-Gonzaga University Star Pitches Bellingham Past Spokane For Title

Darin Blood has pitched many important games in Spokane, but none as big as Thursday’s win at Seafirst Stadium.

Blood (5-3) pitched six innings for the win as Bellingham clinched the Northern Division of the Northwest League with a 5-2 decision over the Spokane Indians.

Bellingham (40-27) took a 10-game lead over second-place Spokane (30-37) with nine games to go. If the season ended today, the Giants would meet defending league champion Boise in the playoffs.

Blood, a Post Falls native, played his senior year at Central Valley High before moving on Gonzaga University, and benefitted from a Giants’ run in the top of the seventh to snap a 2-all tie.

“He was outstanding,” Bellingham manager Glenn Tufts said after Blood allowed two earned runs, struck out four and walked four.

“He hadn’t pitched for a month when he joined us,” Tufts said. “So all you can do with your first four starts, because of the pitch count, is lose. He would have had four or five more wins.”

Whether Blood would concur with that analysis is unclear. The 6-foot-2, 200-pound right-hander joined his family in the stands for the end of the game and didn’t join Bellingham’s relatively subdued postgame celebration.

Blood, the San Francisco Giants’ third-round selection in the June amateur draft, gave up James Vida’s fourth home run of the year, a solo shot in the fourth, and Joel Nations’ RBI single in the sixth.

Ricardo Calderon’s RBI single off reliever D. Wayne Upchurch in the seventh gave Blood the victory. Blood, making his club-high 12th start, entered the game with the league’s seventh-best earned-run average, 2.74.

Spokane starter Steve Prihoda (1-5) matched Blood pitch for pitch, giving up just five hits and two earned runs. He allowed Pedro Felix’s RBI single in the second, then was let down by his defense in the sixth after Bruce Thompson’s one-out inflield single. Deivi Cruz, who would hit his second homer of the year in the ninth for an insurance run, lined a shot to right that Dwayne Lewis misjudged. Lewis raised his glove, but not quite high enough, and the error hurt the Indians.

Lewis, however, had three of Spokane’s six hits. The Indians could do nothing against reliever Jim Stoops, who no-hit them for three innings for his second save.

Home plate umpire John Lomavaya, with a wide strike zone, ejected Bellingham’s Rey Corujo and Spokane’s Randy Paulin for arguing third strikes.

The three-game series ends tonight and is the Indians’ third and final 50-cent feast night. All hot dogs, ice cream sandwiches and Pepsi are 50 cents.

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