An early impression about the 2015 Spokane Indians: Their defense has been spotty and their bats have lacked power. Read game story

The Spokane Indians have split the first two games of their 2015 Northwest League season. That's not a large enough sample size to predict how this team will fare, but manager Tim Hulett will certainly want improvement in two areas.

 

First, the Indians have committed six errors in their first two games and could have been charged with more. They were originally credited with four errors on Saturday, but a postgame scoring change cut that to three. Hillsboro has scored in four of the five innings in which the Indians have made an error.

 

"The defense was poor," Hulett said after Saturday's loss. "We need to do a better job of that."

 

Second, Spokane has collected just two extra-base hits, both doubles. One of those doubles, by Sherman Lacrus in the second inning Saturday, was originally ruled an error by center fielder Dane McFarland.

 

The Indians' Saturday starter, Emerson Martinez, and third reliever Tyler Davis both struggled. Other relievers Jeffrey Springs, Kohsuke Tomita and Blake Bass didn't allowed any earned runs, but they combined to give up four hits and five walks in 4 1/3 innings.

 

"On the pitching side, if we did get ahead we worked back to a full count and just couldn’t put anybody away tonight," Hulett said. "We were behind a lot of hitters tonight. That, plus poor defense, it was a bad combination tonight."

 

 

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