Indians cash in

The Spokane Indians’ organization billed Wednesday night’s game against the Everett AquaSox as “10K for 10K,” and the bullpen stepped up to the challenge, pitching exactly 10 strikeouts to reward lucky fan Linda Walker with $10,000 en route to a 4-1 win.

In his first start for the Indians, right-hander Evan Reed allowed no hits and pitched six strikeouts in three innings.

Reed was drafted by the Indians in the third round of the 2007 draft.

“It was a good game,” he said. “I knew I was on a limited pitch count, so I just wanted to go out and throw as many strikes as I could.”

Reed finished his senior year as a closer at Cal Poly with 41 strikeouts in 42 innings pitched.

Wednesday night was Reed’s first start since his sophomore year of college.

“This was my first start in a long time. I’ve come out of the pen a lot in the lat year, and they didn’t want to rush me into anything,” Reed said. “I just wanted to keep my pitch count down and throw strikes and help somebody win that $10,000. That was the best part.”

Former starting pitcher Michael Kirkman (1-4) took over for Reed in the fourth inning in his new role as a reliever.

Kirkman struggled in his last two starts for the Indians, allowing seven runs in two innings a week ago in the Indians’ loss to Yakima.

As a reliever, he fared slightly better, allowing just one hit in two innings even though he also walked two batters.

“I felt pretty good tonight, a little less pressure,” Kirkman said. “The last couple of games, I just had trouble calming down on the mound. I was getting behind hitters, walking people, giving up hits.”

“Kirky’d been struggling a little bit, it was good for him to get out of that role for right now, give his mind a break,” Indians manager Tim Hulett said. “He got two strong innings and that’s the Kirkman we remember.”

The Indians have won the last two games mainly on the strength of their bullpen, which has put together 23 strikeouts and allowed only four runs in 18 innings.

Spokane had a shutout going until the final inning, when Everett’s Gregory Halman scored on a fielding error by Indians first baseman Renny Osuna.

“We won – it was a good night. We pretty much shut them down all night, and every time we had a dangerous situation, we turned it into a double play,” Hulett said.

The Indians capitalized on hits from the top half of the batting order and two walks courtesy of the AquaSox to get ahead in the sixth inning.

Tim Smith got on base after he was hit by a pitch, and sauntered home from third base three batters later when Everett pitcher Edward Paredes hit Eric Fry with the bases loaded.

First baseman Ian Gac then drove another run home with a grounder to short.

With the win, the Indians improve to 15-20 on the season, and are 2 1/2 games behind Northwest League East leaders Boise.

The Indians play the AquaSox again today at 6:35 p.m. at Avista Stadium in Game 2 of a five-game series.