Indians lose ninth straight
Down by one run in the second inning, the Spokane Indians hustled to tie the game at 3 in the fourth inning against the Eugene Emeralds.
It would remain that way until the ninth inning when Jesus Lopez knocked in the tie-breaking run in Eugene’s 4-3 victory in Game 1 of the five-game series in Northwest League baseball play in front of 4,326 on Thursday night at Avista Stadium.
Eugene’s Tom King started the winning rally with his second double of the night. After a pitching change, Lopez followed with a base hit to right-center field off of Jeremiah Haar.
“I was getting ready for a base hit to come,” King said of Lopez’s final at-bat. “With my at-bat, I was just trying to get on base any way I could.”
In the bottom of the ninth, Spokane’s Steve Marquardt ripped a ball all the way to the right-field wall, but he was robbed of a solo home run for the first out of the inning.
K.C. Herren followed with a base hit to King at second which hit him in the forearm, causing King to fumble the ball and rush the throw off-target to first. The ball rolled to the dugout, advancing Herren to second. But Herren was left stranded there after a flyout by Jay Heafner and a groundout by Billy Killian.
The loss for Spokane (19-38) gives the Indians a nine-game losing streak (after having lost eight on the road).
Spokane manager Mike Micucci said his team felt rested after having Wednesday off. Despite the loss, he said the team performed well.
“We need to do what we did tonight,” Micucci said of coming out of the slump. “We threw the ball well tonight, we played all the aspects. We just came up one run short.”
Spokane’s Juan Carlos Garcia sported a 14.54 earned run average entering Game 1 and in his fourth starting appearance pitched five innings, giving up three runs on six hits. Garcia’s ERA is at 11.50 after the performance.
Austin Weilep (1-2) entered in the top of the sixth and pitched three full innings, giving up both of King’s doubles and taking the loss.
He posted one strikeout in each inning, and out of 10 Eugene batters, only three hits left the infield.
After pitching 5 1/3 innings, Emeralds starting pitcher Drew Miller was relieved by Ben Krosschell after giving up consecutive base hits in the sixth.
Miller finished the night giving up three runs on six hits and two strikeouts.
Eugene (31-26) cycled through five pitchers who allowed seven hits.