Indians lose to Volcanoes

KEIZER, Ore. — The Spokane Indians brief five-game road trip got off to a rough start on Monday night.

Simon Klink’s RBI single in the bottom of the sixth inning untied the game and propelled the Salem-Keizer Volcanoes to a 7-2 Northwest League victory over the Indians.

The loss dropped Spokane (32-31) into third place in the East Division, two games behind front-running Boise and a game back of second-place Tri-City.

Spokane took an early 2-0 lead with single runs in the second and third innings.

In the top of the second, Brandon Boggs drew a two-out walk from Volcanoes’ starter Craig Whitaker. Ryan Baldwin sent Boggs to third base on a single to right-center field and Bobby LeNoir followed with an infield single to plate the run.

In the third, Kevin Mahar led off with a single up the middle, stole second and third and scored on a wild pitch.

An RBI double by Jeff Palumbo and an RBI groundout by Brian Horwitz knotted the score for Salem-Keizer (31-32) in the bottom of the fourth.

Klink gave the Volcanoes the lead for good in the sixth and made a loser of Spokane reliever J.D. Cockroft (1-6).

John Bannister started the game for Spokane and went five innings. He allowed two earned runs on four hits and a walk, while striking out five.

Anthony Moreno (4-0) earned the win for the Volcanoes with 3 1/3 innings of shutout relief. Geno Espineli got the final four outs to pick up his second save of the season.

Spokane reliever Clayton Jerome allowed a pair of runs, one earned, in one inning of work and Kevin Altman surrendered two runs in 1 2/3 innings to close out the game.

Right-hander John Lujan (0-0, 3.00 ERA) gets his first start on the mound for the Indians at 6:30 tonight in the second game of the five-game series. S-K will counter with Justin Hedrick (1-0, 1.33).