Beefed-Up Bellingham Rolls
After last season, the San Francisco Giants and Seattle Mariners coveted Everett as a Northwest League farm team.
San Francisco had spent 11 seasons in Everett and wanted to extend the affiliation.
Seattle, meanwhile, sought to pick up Everett. Bellingham, the Mariners’ NWL farm team for 18 years, was farther away than Everett and typically drew 1,000 fewer fans per game.
Seattle won the sweepstakes, and the Everett Giants became the Everett AquaSox.
Yet San Francisco, forced to align with Bellingham, may have the best laugh - at least for this year.
By winning 14 of its last 18 games, Bellingham has stormed to the league’s Northern Division lead. Everett trails the new Giants by five games.
Bellingham took barely two weeks to go from three games out of first to as much as seven games ahead.
San Francisco appears serious about the situation. In the coming days, Bellingham’s rotation may feature five players selected in the top 10 rounds of last June’s amateur draft.
Local folks already know about third-round selection Darin Blood, the Post Falls native who played at Central Valley High and Gonzaga University. Blood, the Pacific-10 Conference’s North Division pitcher of the year, is 2-2 with the Giants, with 33 strikeouts and 13 walks in 34 innings. Blood’s earned run average, 1.59, is third-best in the league.
But San Francisco has also stocked Bellingham with its top two draftees, pitchers Joe Fontenot of Lafayette, La., and Jason Brester of Burlington, Wash.
Both pitchers, just out of high school, are expected to ease their way into the starting rotation.
Pigged out
Yakima, last year’s Northern Division champ, plummeted south when Bellingham went north.
The Bears sank from first place to last in less than two weeks.
The disintegration forced Yakima to abandon the “piggyback” pitching rotation it used effectively in 1994. With the piggyback, starters know they’ll be replaced after four or five innings by a designated reliever who is expected to finish the job. The next time around, the starter and reliever are likely to change roles.
Hoping for a turnaround, the Bears have switched to a six-man rotation.
Swinging an 8-pounder
Everett infielder Randy Vickers had a big week, turning 20 years old and becoming a father for the first time.
The 8-pound, 10-ounce girl was quite overdue, making for some anxious moments in the Aquasox clubhouse. Everett manager Orlando Gomez, father of six, was reportedly the biggest Nervous Nellie.
On Wisconsin
Last week’s Southern Oregon-Boise series resulted in a league record that may stand the test of time.
Four consecutive games included pitchers from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, an NCAA Division III school.
Boise’s Tom Petri relieved in two of the games. Boise’s Jarrod Washburn and Southern Oregon’s Kevin Mlodik had starts on nights Petri didn’t pitch.
Two months ago Petri, Washburn and Mlodik were teammates for the Titans.
Matter of perspective
Portland’s longest losing streak of the year is three games.
“When you’ve won as many as we have, a two-game losing streak can seem like a month and a half,” Portland manager P.J. Carey said after the Rockies dropped two straight to Spokane last week.
Around the league
Last-place Eugene (19-23) and first-place Bellingham (25-17) were both 17-15 on July 18. … Boise reliever Grant Vermillion (8-2) has seven wins in July. The NWL short-season record for wins - by starter or reliever - is 13. … The 17-game hitting streak of Spokane’s James Vida is the league’s longest this season. The streak ended Friday.
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Graphic: Indians’ month at-a-glance
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