Indians’ Streak Continues

In his last start, Spokane Indians left-hander Jay King couldn’t find his change-up.

Or his curveball for that matter.

His fastball deserted him, too. And he didn’t last long. But some extra time in the bullpen last week working with pitching coach Randy Smith paid off for King in his sixth start on Sunday. He struck out eight in six innings, allowing three runs on three hits with two walks to lead the Indians (22-14) to their ninth straight Northwest League victory.

The 8-5 win over Salem-Keizer in front of 4,878 fans at Seafirst Stadium keeps them atop the North Division. King (3-1), a non-drafted free agent out of the University of Mobile, retired the side in the first three innings. “Last time nothing was working,” he said of his July 20 showing at Yakima in which he was done after 2-1/3 innings.

“Luckily today everything was working. I didn’t throw as hard as I usually do but velocity will come. I was hitting my spots.”

Aside from King’s impressive performance, the Indians pounded 12 hits and took advantage of four errors by Salem-Keizer (14-21).

“We had a defensive lapse,” said Volcanoes catcher Michael Wright, who was responsible for one of the errors. “Maybe it was fatigue from the long bus ride but I’m not making excuses. We missed a lot of routine plays. That happens. But you can’t do that against any team. It’s giving up free outs, which usually end up in runs.”

Spokane built a 6-1 lead with its four-run fourth but Salem-Keizer scored four in the seventh. One of those was an unearned run allowed by Indians reliever Pedro Herrera. Herrera gave up two walks and lasted only a third of an inning before Raul Garcia came in. Spokane turned a double play to end the inning.

Jay Gehrke pitched the ninth to earn his eighth save.

Spokane scored two runs in the third on two singles and an error. Charlie Ramirez came home on James Shanks’ sacrifice fly and Mark Ellis also made it across when Volcanoes right fielder Ryan Pene overthrew third base.

The Volcanoes used four pitchers and starter Kurt Ainsworth (0-1) took a beating. Four of the six runs he gave up were unearned and he allowed five hits in 3-2/3 innings.

Notes

Felipe Alou Jr. fractured his left shin when he fouled a ball off it in Saturday’s game against Everett and is out indefinitely… . Tonight’s pitching matchup in the second game of the five-game series features Spokane right-hander Brian Sanches (0-0, 3.00 ERA) against Salem-Keizer righty Jeremy Cunningham (0-1, 3.72).

INDIANS 8 VOLCANOES 5 Tonight: Salem Keizer at Spokane, 7:05.