Dust Devils beat Hall, Indians
PASCO – It is a case of trial and error with Indians’ starter Jesse Hall. After not throwing for a month, prior to signing, the left-hander from Gallup, N.M., was asked to change his mechanics when he got to Spokane. After Saturday’s 7-4 loss to the Tri-City Dust Devils, the 19-year-old remained positive about the process despite allowing five runs on five hits in two innings pitched to raise his ERA to 11.42.
“I’m a little disappointed in myself, but I’m not too down,” he said. “This is a learning process and eventually it will start to produce results.” Hall took his second loss of the season before a crowd of 2,348 at Dust Devil Stadium. He threw 50 pitches – 34 were strikes.
The other two other pitchers – Tanner McElroy and Dave Smith – allowed six hits and two runs.
According to Hall, his delivery was slow upon arriving. He has been working with pitching coach Glenn Abbott to speed it up so it becomes harder for the opposition to steal bases.
“It’s now speeding up,” said Hall of his delivery. “Right now is the release point.”
Hall’s first pitch of the game was hits for a triple by Sandy Almonte, who scored on a grounder to first by the next batter, Travis Becktel. On the grounder, Freddie Thon fielded the ball and attempted to throw out Almonte at the plate, but the throw was too high for Lizahio Baez to tag out a sliding Almonte.
Becktel scored on a double by the third batter, Phillip Cuadrado, to give Tri-City a 2-1 lead.
In the next inning, Hall walked Michael Milliron to begin the inning.
Milliron then advanced to second on a wild pitch and scored on a double by Pedro Strop.
Strop scored on the next pitch, a single to right field by Steven Boggs.
Boggs stole second then, after Almonte struck out, moved to third on an infield single by Becktel and scored on a fly ball by Phillip Cuadrado to left field.
In three starts, Hall has pitched 8 2/3 innings and allowed 11 earned runs. McElroy came on in relief to start the third inning and got tagged by the Dust Devils for one run in the third and another in the fourth. Smith gave up two hits, but no runs, in three innings of relief.
Steve Murphy extended his hitting streak to 10 games with a double in the first that moved German Duran to third. Duran, who got on base by drawing a walk, scored the first run of the game on single to left-center by Baez.
It was Baez’s seventh RBI in three games. He has recorded a hit and RBI in every game since joining the Indians on Thursday.
Murphy, who went 3 for 4, is batting .378 (14 of 37) in the month of July with one home run, nine doubles and 11 RBIs.
Notes
Today’s probables are Doug Mathis (1-1, 2.84 ERA and 19 strikeouts) for Spokane against Buzz Vargas (2-1, 2.25 and 13) of the Dust Devils. … Friday’s attendance of 4,838 in the series finale with Eugene at Avista Stadium pushed the Indians’ season total to 47,888. Last year Spokane led the league in attendance with 169,075 and is in through 10 games this season. The Indians, with an average of 4,788 per game, are on pace to finish the season with 181,944. … The Indians booster club made the drive to Pasco for an in-game BBQ with the Tri-City boosters.