Poor defense costs Indians
This was the kind of game that makes rookie league baseball legendary.
The Vancouver Canadians clubbed the Spokane Indians 12-8 Monday night at Avista Stadium, getting nine unearned runs in the process.
“You don’t expect it but it happens in baseball,” Vancouver hitting star Kurt Suzuki said. “The game was kind of weird but you can’t play perfect in baseball. It wasn’t our best played game either.”
Suzuki, picked by Oakland in the second-round after helping Cal State-Fullerton win the College World Series, had three hits, including his first professional home run. He has 12 hits in 37 at-bats in just nine games.
“At the time the College World Series seemed better,” said Suzuki, a catcher from Hawaii. “No one can ever take that away … (but) the home run felt good. It’s good to get that out of the way.”
There were no smiles on Spokane’s side, and that included the 3,080 fans on a perfect night for baseball if not a night for perfect baseball.
Most damning was that two of the four Indians errors were by outfielders, both in the same inning — the five-run seventh when there were five misplayed balls in the outfield. That put the Canadians up10-7 after they squandered a 5-2 lead.
That took the luster off of a two homer game by Travis Metcalf, giving him three in two games and eight for the season.
The seventh started with right fielder Ben Harrison dropping a fly by Suzuki after getting a late break on the shallow hit. Javier Herrera followed with a single and then first baseman Chris Alexander’s throw to second on an attempted force out went into left field for the first run. Then Brandon Boggs, trying to make an overhead catch in deep centerfield, dropped the ball for another run. Back-to-back groundouts were good for the third run before a double, when Harrison couldn’t locate the ball as it sailed over his head, plated the fourth. A single ended the scoring.
That wasn’t the only inning where the runs were cheap.
For the Canadians it was their four-run fourth. The inability to turn a double play and an error, both miscues by shortstop Tobin Swope, led to two runs. Then Suzuki, who had 16 homers for the Titans as a junior, belted a two-run homer that made it 5-2. That ended the night for Spokane starter Kevin Altman.
The Indians got two runs in the fifth on four walks and a hit batter. Combined with Metcalf’s two-run homer in the first, Spokane trailed 5-4.
Then in the sixth, Swope doubled, Bobby LeNoir singled him home and Metcalf hit a towering home run to left field, giving the Indians a short-lived 7-5 lead.
With the Canadians scoring big in the seventh, making a hard-luck loser of J.D. Cockroft (0-3), the third of four Indians pitchers, Zach Basch (1-2) got the win despite giving up the three runs in the sixth.
Vancouver made it 12-7 in the eighth when Javier Herrera crushed his sixth homer to centerfield.
The Indians got one back in the bottom of the eighth on Boggs’ leadoff homer to right, his third.
Suzuki, who has 12 hits in 37 at-bats, waited a couple of weeks after the CWS to sign.
“I took two weeks off to rest,” he said, adding there was never a doubt he would sign. “My swing was there but my rhythm was messed up. … It felt good. I haven’t hit a ball like that for a while, especially with a wood bat.”
First-round draft choice Eric Hurley will make his first appearance for the Indians tonight, starting game four of the five-game series. The 6-4, 195-pound lefty out of high school in Jacksonville, Fla., will face Michael Rogers (0-0), who is a fourth-round pick out of North Carolina State, at 6:30.