Indians shut out Canadians
The Spokane Indians didn’t hit the baseball often Sunday night but when they did they hit it hard.
Travis Metcalf and Mike Nickeas belted home runs and John Bannister was sensational in relief as the Indians beat the Vancouver Canadians 5-0 to stay in first place in the East Division of the Northwest League.
Metcalf’s sixth home run was the big blow, a three-run rocket, in the third inning.
“Finally,” the 11th-round draft choice out of the University of Kansas said. “It’s been a while… . I’ve been making contact but the ball hasn’t been falling in.”
Then Bannister (2-0) took over and carried the Indians (20-17) to their third shutout before a crowd of 3,490.
“I just tried to get ahead of people and throw strikes,” said the right-hander who came in in the fourth inning. “I felt like everything was working. All the pitches were going for me and I had great defense behind me. I threw the ball down.”
In five innings, Bannister gave up two hits and struck out seven with just one walk.
“He’s done that every time we’ve sent him out there,” Indians manager Darryl Kennedy said.
Spokane starter Justin Lensch was in trouble throughout his three innings, giving up six hits, which was one more than his teammates managed through seven innings.
“It was strictly a pitch count,” Kennedy said of Lensch exiting after three innings. “He had 25 pitches in the first inning (58 overall), that really took a toll.”
Vancouver (17-20) had three hits in the first, two in the second and a double off the wall in the third but had nothing to show for it.
Bannister, who averages a strikeout every inning and a walk every three to go with his 2.51 earned run average, retired the first six batters he faced before getting in a jam in the sixth. But after a leadoff single and a walk he set down the next three hitters.
No. 9 Bobby LeNoir got the Indians’ first hit with one out in the third. He stole second and went to third on a groundout. After Brandon Boggs walked, Metcalf crushed the next pitch from Tomas Cabaniel (3-2) over the leftfield wall.
“Our hitting coach, Derek Lee, was telling us he was getting ahead with first-pitch fastballs and then throwing his other junk,” Metcalf said. “He said to go up there and look for it.”
Kennedy said, “He’s been struggling a little bit, (pitchers) have really been bearing down on him and pitching him tough. That was a big hit, especially with two outs… . That’s one thing we haven’t been able to do is get that big two-out hit.”
The home run by Nickeas, his seventh, was also a rocket to center field. It came off Derek Tharpe in the sixth.
The Indians finished with seven hits – two less than Vancouver – with three coming in the eighth when they added a run on a Metcalf RBI single.
Clayton Jerome pitched the ninth for Spokane.
Game three of the five-game series is tonight. Vancouver’s Ryan Ford (0-0) will oppose Spokane’s Kevin Altman (1-1).