Indians’ Fogle saves day
With the way he’s going, it didn’t take a large leap of faith for Indians manager Greg Riddoch to hand the ball to Nate Fogle to close a game.
Fogle rewarded Riddoch and the Indians, snuffing out a Bears rally, then making it interesting in the ninth inning – after all, that’s the way this Spokane squad operates – before picking up his first professional save in a 5-4 Indians win.
It keeps Spokane (31-34 Northwest League East Division) a game behind Tri-City, which continues to win, beating Boise 4-3 in Pasco for its ninth win in 11 games.
In his first late-game save situation this season, Fogle continued his recent run, and with this outing, allowed only his second earned run in his last 15 innings (1.20 ERA).
More impressive, though, is his dominance, and in the last two weeks, he’s struck out 19 of the last 32 batters he’s faced.
The Indians led 5-3 in the bottom of the eighth and Yakima put runners on first and third with one out against Spokane reliever Juan Maldonado (4-4).
Fogle came on in relief, and got Yakima cleanup hitter Trey Hendricks to pop out to shortstop, then struck out Derek Bruce on a 3-2 slider to get out of the inning.
In the ninth, Yakima sandwiched a walk and a hit batter around two strikeouts, and Leyson Septimo’s bloop single into left field scored the runner from second, cutting Spokane’s lead to one.
Fogle closed the game, though, striking out Ramon Downing looking to end it.
“It’s just been getting myself healthy and coming out of college, which ended badly,” said Fogle, who battled tendinitis in his shoulder and the residual effects of a disappointing two-and-out by Oregon State at the College World Series in Omaha.
“I’ve been able to get ahead of the hitters early, and then I can throw my sliders, which are my strikeout pitches,” Fogle said. “They have to chase my stuff and adjust to me, more than me adjusting to them.”
Spokane broke a 3-all tie in the seventh after a two-out, bases-loaded walk to K.C. Herren. Joe Kemp followed with an RBI infield single.
Broc Coffman picked up a no-decision, but gave the Indians another strong start, going six innings, allowing three hits and two runs, striking out five.
Coffman admitted that jumping ahead of the struggling Bears, losers of 12 of their last 14, was important going into a six-game stretch against them.
“Especially a team that’s a couple of games back of us, you want to get on top of them,” Coffman said. “Maybe it knocks their confidence down a little bit and gets us going. It was good for us to get five runs tonight coming back from 18 innings without any, so it was good to get the bats going.”
Steve Murphy, who ranks in the top five in nearly every NWL offensive category, sat with a jammed right pinkie, injured in a headfirst slide Friday, and is day to day. Cleanup hitter Lizahio Baez came out after one at-bat, a two-run single, because he twisted his left ankle in a play at second base. He’ll be re-evaluated today.