Carson Palmquist delivers career-high 10 strikeouts, Spokane Indians down Eugene 5-3 in opener

With nine games left in the Northwest League season’s first half, and three teams within 1 1/2 games of each other at the top of the standings, every game takes on heightened significance in the race for a bid to the postseason championship series.

The Spokane Indians entered play on Tuesday for the start of a 12-game homestand in a first-place tie with Vancouver. But they were also without key cogs – third baseman Sterlin Thompson didn’t start for a fourth straight game nursing a left elbow injury, and the league’s home run and RBI leader, outfielder Yanquiel Fernandez, was a late scratch.

Others stepped up in a big way.

Carson Palmquist struck out a career-high 10 over six innings, Nic Kent came up with a key bases-loaded single and the Indians beat the Eugene Emeralds 5-3 in the opener of a six-game series at Avista Stadium on Tuesday.

The Indians (32-25) retained at least a share of the league lead pending Vancouver’s late result. Eugene fell to 28-30.

“We’re definitely trying to push right now for that, get the playoff spot,” Kent said. “But we’re just trying to play our ball and not beat ourselves and whatever happens, happens.”

Palmquist allowed three runs on six hits and a walk. He threw 93 pitches, 60 for strikes.

“It felt like everything was working,” Palmquist said. “I could throw everything for strikes and just getting outs for my team.”

With Gabriel Hughes’ promotion to Double-A last week, the starters know there’s more pressure on them.

“For sure,” Palmquist said. “We’ve got to step up and take the rope for him. It’s gonna be a long season. A few people are gonna get called out throughout the year, but we’ve just got to step up for them every time they get called up.”

The Indians trailed 3-1 in the bottom of the sixth. With two down the Indians rallied against Eugene reliever Tanner Keist. Jordan Beck singled and Zach Kokoska walked. Juan Guerrero hit an infield single to load the bases, then Kent’s hard grounder to third bounced off Brett Auerbach and into left field for a two-run single to tie it.

“I just tried to get a good pitch to hit,” Kent said. “(Kiest) was a little bit wild there so I made my zone a little bit smaller and got a good hop there past the third baseman.”

Ben Sems lined a base hit to center to plate Guerrero and the Indians took their first lead of the game.

AJ Lewis launched a homer down the left-field line to put the home team up by two in the seventh.

“We’re just trying to make sure we go out there and play our best,” Lewis said. “As long as we do that, the cards will fall where they’re supposed to fall.”

Down 1-0 in the fifth, Palmquist ran into trouble. He allowed back-to-back singles to Luis Toribio and Ghordy Santos to start the inning and with one down, Grant McCray singled to right field. Toribio barely beat the relay throw home by Adael Amador to make it 2-0.

The Indians put two on with no outs in the bottom half. After a groundout, Ronaiker Palma hit a fly ball to right that carried over the head of Victor Bericoto for an RBI single.

Bericoto made up for the defensive miscue with a long home run to straight left in the sixth to make it 3-1.

Transactions: Right-handed pitcher Cullen Kafka was placed on the injured list backdated to June 10 and lefty Colten Schmidt was added to the roster.

Schmidt, the Colorado Rockies 23rd round pick in the 2018 draft, made two appearances covering 5 1/3 innings with the Rockies Arizona Complex League team this season. Before this season he had not pitched since 2019 when he went 8-8 with a 3.47 ERA in 23 starts between Low-A Asheville and High-A Lancaster.