Volcanoes explode, Indians implode

Perhaps it was an omen, the ash haze that veiled the hills beyond the Avista Stadium outfield. While the Spokane Indians were on the road, the ash blew in from a volcanic eruption July 12 in Alaska.

On Sunday, the Salem-Keizer Volcanoes rumbled into Spokane, ready for an eruption of their own. They buried the Indians 14-2 in the teams’ first meeting of the season.

“There are games – we haven’t played many of them like this, to be honest,” Spokane manager Tim Hulett said. “We’ve done a pretty good job of stopping the bleeding, and we just couldn’t get it stopped tonight.”

The Indians (25-8) committed six errors and allowed 16 hits in the rout. They just kept unravelling.

It was in the top of the fourth that the Indians imploded and the Volcanoes (17-16) exploded. Eight runs. Seven hits. Four errors.

Salem-Keizer’s Ryan Lormand started the inning with a solo homer to left field. That sparked an outburst of hits and errors that blew away the Indians.

Spokane’s Matt West mishandled a grounder – error. Then Indians starter Richard Bleier allowed a double. Then, a single for two runs (just one of them earned). Shortstop Kyle Higgins handed the Volcanoes another error (one of the three he committed), then so did second baseman Jason Ogata. Then, another three singles.

“Even when Rich made a good pitch, they were able to hit a ball in a hole,” Hulett said. “They hit some balls hard, we made some errors, and it just seemed to snowball on us.”

After 11 batters in the inning, Indians manager Tim Hulett pulled Bleier, who allowed eight runs, but just two of them were earned. He got the loss after entering the game 3-0 with a 1.93 ERA – that jumped to 2.27 by the end.

“It was just a tough game in general,” Bleier said. “Earned or not, I still gave up eight runs. I made pitches to get outs, but I gave up a ton of hits, too.”

But, it was in the top of the fifth that the Indians imploded and the Volcanoes exploded. Wait, does that sentence sound familiar?

Reliever Clifford Springston allowed five hits and gave up four runs in the fifth. One of those was a solo homer by Mike Loberg, who smacked another long ball – a two-run bomb this time – in the next inning.

By the time the next reliever, Dustin Brader, came in for the seventh inning, the Volcanoes led the game 14-1. Springston allowed six hits and earned five runs on the night.

“They had a good team last year, they have a good team this year,” Hulett said of Salem-Keizer, the defending Northwest League champion. “They’ve got a good manager, they know how to play the game, they’re playing the game the right way.

“You know, you’re going to have to play to beat them.”

Meanwhile, the Spokane bats were all but silent. Only Dennis Guinn (2 for 3), Kyle Higgins (1 for 2) and Eric Fry (1 for 4) got hits. Guinn represented the Indians’ first run, which he scored in the third inning on a sacrifice fly by David Paisano.

Their second run was in the bottom of the ninth, just before the Indians walked humbly to their locker room.

“If I gotta tell them something, that they got beat 14-2, put up four hits and six errors …” Hulett said, before trailing off, about what he might tell his players after the game. “These guys are smart. They know.”

The Indians and Volcanoes play again today at 6:30 p.m. at Avista Stadium.