Rockies Throttle Indians
Little things win baseball games and Saturday night one of the smallest was the biggest.
Portland second baseman Doug Livingston made several small, but crucial, plays to lift Portland to a 6-1 Northwest League win over the Spokane Indians before 5,575 fans at Seafirst Stadium.
“That little second baseman is their sparkplug,” Spokane manager Bob Herold said. “You try to keep the ball away from a heads-up player and keep him away from the plate in key situations. You can tell he’s their big guy, even though he’s a little guy. They said the game starts in the middle of the field and they got it tonight.”
The 5-foot-8, 160-pound Livingston, out of Clemson University, started the Rockies’ three-run second inning, made a heads-up defensive play to turn a bunt for a hit into an out and then had the crucial two-out hit in the ninth to ice the game.
Meanwhile, a couple of poorly executed bunts and base-running errors plus no clutch hits brought Spokane’s five-game home winning streak to an end.
“Little things,” Herold said. “Little things win games. They did the little things tonight and we didn’t. We didn’t do the little things well we did last night.”
Portland pitching also played a role in that. Starter Tom Stepka got a couple of big plays plus two double plays to stay unscathed and was working his way through the Indians lineup for the third time when cleanup hitter Kit Pellow blasted his 14th home run over the left-field fence.
The Indians had three singles in the second but on the third, by Eric Sees, left fielder Rod Bair threw Juan Robles out at the plate.
Herold said Robles slowed down rounding third and had to restart his sprint for home when Bair bobbled the ball.
In the fifth, Spokane had runners at the corners with one out but Stepka coaxed a shallow fly to center from leadoff hitter Rick Pitts and Jeremy Giambi grounded out. It could have been a big inning but that’s when Livingston pounced on Sees’ push bunt for the first out.
In seven innings, Stepka (5-4) scattered five hits and walked two but did not strike out a batter.
“Their guy did a good job,” Herold said. “He kept our guys off balance. Even the ball to Pellow was a 3-2 slider.”
Scott Schroeffel pitched two hitless innings for his first save, also bringing an end to Spokane’s run of five games with at least 10 hits.
The Rockies got to Steve Hueston for three runs in the fourth on four singles. Catcher Blake Anderson drove in two of the runs with a single to center and went to second when shortstop Sees threw the ball away. Anderson scored on a single by DH Rogelio Arias. Again, it was center fielder Beltran’s throw into Sees when he should have thrown home that changed the complexion of the inning, Herold said.
“Hueston had one bad inning,” Herold said. “You could see Arias had trouble catching up with the fast ball and he threw a breaking pitch.”
Hueston pitched into the eighth when Herold brought in closer Ryan Brewer.
“We don’t normally throw Brewer out there in that situation but I thought we could score two runs,” Herold said.
The Rockies broke the game open in the ninth against Brewer, loading the bases on two infield singles sandwiched around a walk and two outs. Livingston then roped a sharp single to left and the ball got past Giambi, allowing three runs to score.
Game three of the four-game series is at 6 p.m. today with Scott Mullen (4-3) starting for Spokane against Jake Westbrook, the Rockies’ No. 1 draft pick out of Georgia who was just moved up from Chandler in the Arizona League. On Monday, Portland will start their No. 2 pick John Nicholson, a high schooler out of Texas who was promoted with Westbrook.
, DataTimes