Sluggish Indians Fall Short Unearned Runs In Fourth Pay Off For Emeralds

The Spokane Indians’ assault on Mount Five Hundred was put on hold Sunday night at Seafirst Stadium as the Eugene Emeralds beat Spokane 6-1.

Eugene put an end to Spokane’s two-game winning streak, and the Indians fell to 29-34, five games below the .500 mark. The last time Spokane had won as many as it had lost, its record was 0-0.

So maybe it isn’t so much an assault on a plateau as it is trying to get to sea level. Even though Sunday was a temporary setback, Spokane has won 10 of its last 13 games. Going into last night’s contest, the Indians were 8-2 in their last 10.

And considering all of that, Spokane manager Al Pedrique was surprised that his team put forth the lackluster effort it did on Sunday.

“We just went through the motions,” Pedrique said. “It wasn’t pretty on our part.”

The loss was charged to pitcher Jeremy Williamson. But don’t be deceived, he had a strong outing. A bounce here and there and Williamson could have won the game.

In the fourth inning, Eugene scored four unearned runs as a result of an error by Spokane third baseman William Roland.

Eugene’s George Lombard led off the fourth with a basehit which was the first allowed by Williamson. Glenn Williams then reached first when Roland bobbled a routine groundball. When Roland’s throw to first pulled Randy Paulin off the bag, both runners were safe.

The runners advanced when Roland, after fielding Wilton Person’s grounder, opted to throw to first base instead of stepping on third for the first out. The mental error put two men in scoring position.

After Robert Sasser’s sacrifice fly scored Lombard, Mike Mahoney hit a shot off Williamson’s glove to score Williams. Pooh Hines doubled to score Mahoney, who had stolen second base, and Joe Trippy doubled to score Randy Hodges, who was pinchrunning for Hines.

Williamson pitched six innings, gave up six hits, all six runs (only two of which were earned), allowed just one walk and struck out two. His record fell to 1-1.

As for Eugene, Charlie Cruz gave the Emeralds some stability in his five innings of work on the mound. That was something they hadn’t had in the first two games of this road trip. Cruz gave up just two hits, one run (unearned) while striking out seven.

“After laying out 30 hits, we needed a performance like that from Charlie,” Emeralds manager Paul Runge said.

Runge thought his team’s performance Sunday had its roots late Saturday. After falling behind 12-0, the Ems battled back to make the score 12-8 before Spokane went on to win.

“We battled back hard Saturday, and today, we skipped batting practice and just came out with the intention of where we left off,” Runge said.

Spokane’s loss, coupled with Bellingham’s doubleheader split against Boise, leaves the Indians 9-1/2 games behind Bellingham, which leads the division.

Pedrique said there was one positive thing that could be drawn out of Sunday’s loss for Spokane.

“I hope they realized tonight that you’re going to get beat if you don’t show up ready to play,” he said.

, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: ON DECK Spokane plays host to Eugene tonight at 7:05