Indians’ Bats Lift Reichert To First Pro Win Brown, Willis Help Spokane Beat Portland With Season’s Best Run Total

Dan Reichert was starting to get a little nervous, but his teammates took care of the butterflies.

Reichert, Kansas City’s first-round draft pick in June, picked up his first victory as a professional Sunday night when the Spokane Indians clobbered the Portland Rockies 14-1 before 5,061 fans at Seafirst Stadium.

“Finally,” he said. “I finally got a win under my belt. It feels good. My previous starts I was over-throwing the ball, trying too hard. Tonight, I relaxed and let my mechanics do it.”

The Spokane batters bided their time, letting Portland starter Ryan Seifert work three hitless innings. In the next five, the Indians pounded out 16 hits - matching their season high from a 10-inning 13-9 win at Portland - for a season-high 14 runs.

Dermal “Dee” Brown regained the league batting lead with three hits in three at-bats, upping his average to .354. He also scored three times and drove in three runs.

Dave Willis had four singles in five at-bats, driving in four runs.

“As a team, we’re able to put a lot of runs together real quick,” Willis said. “We knew the second time around on that pitcher we’d have a chance to score some runs. We had seen his pitches and hit the ball. We knew if we hit the ball it would fall.”

Willis, a 10th-round pick, raised his average to .291 with his four hits.

“I did that a few times in college,” he said. “It was a lot of luck. I had two hard hits and two squeaked by. That’s what baseball is all about.”

That’s what Portland manager Jim Eppard said after seven of his eight position players committed errors, leading to eight unearned runs. The Rockies also stranded 14 base runners.

“It’s baseball,” he said after his team’s season-high four-game winning streak came to an end. “We’ve been playing pretty consistent all season long and pretty well. We’re thankful for that. The character of this team is we’ll be right back tomorrow … it’s not like this game will carry over.”

There was no harm done to the South Division leading Rockies (30-22) as Southern Oregon lost to Boise 5-2, keeping the Timberjacks three games back. The Indians (30-23) remain seven games behind Boise in the North.

Reichert pitched into the sixth inning, leaving after giving up two singles while leading 6-0. Scott Key walked the bases loaded then got a short fly to left and a double-play ball to end the threat.

Reichert, who throws a hard slider, said his best pitch was a four-seam fastball and he showed a change-up that made the fastball better.

“I had a third pitch, a change-up,” he said. “I only threw it twice but I put it in their minds.”

He allowed five singles, struck out four, walked two and hit back-to-back batters with two outs in the fourth.

“l was getting a little nervous if I was going to get a win up here,” he said. “I’ve just got to get better each outing.”

The third game of this five-game series features Jake Kringen, a seventh-round pick out of the University of Washington, for Portland and 18-year old Corey Thurman, who was just called up from the Gulf Coast League, for Spokane.

Kringen, from Elma, Wash., owns a 3-4 record after an 0-3 start and has a string of 20 innings without giving up an earned run.

, DataTimes