Plenty of fun at the ballpark
A traveling baseball festival will be making a stop at Avista Stadium on Thursday before the Spokane Indians face the Boise Hawks.
The Principal Financial Group Family Fun Fest, created by the Entertainment & Sports International, is a 4,000 square foot festival that will be set up outside Avista’s main gates and will open at 3:30 p.m.
The festival is a free celebration of baseball and will visit 54 minor league baseball ballparks this season. It will include more than 20 baseball-themed attractions, including a minor league baseball museum, Xbox 360 Home Run Derby video game trailer, batting and pitching cages, a giant slide and an exhibit for fans to have their picture on a free souvenir cover of LIFE magazine.
Festivities will go on until game time at 6:30 p.m.
End of streaks
While the Indians snapped their nine-game losing streak with an 8-4 victory over the Eugene Emeralds on Friday, the Salem-Keizer Volcanoes’ 10-game winning streak also came to an end.
The Volcanoes lost 3-1 to the Tri-City Dust Devils after a 7-1 victory over Tri-City on Thursday, which extended the winning streak to 10. Steven Calcutt and three relievers combined for a three-hitter in Salem-Keizer’s final victory of its streak.
Salem-Keizer still remains first in the Northwest League in the West Division with a 40-18 record, nine games ahead of the second-place Emeralds.
Players of the week
Both the pitcher and offensive player of the week hail from Salem-Keizer.
Mathew Weston batted .560 (14 for 25) in the week with five doubles, 12 RBIs and two home runs. He hit safely in nine straight games, lifting his average from .219 to .295. When the Volcanoes faced the Yakima Bears on Monday, Weston hit a game-tying two-run home run and later scored the winning run. After Monday, he went on to score at least one run in each of his next five games.
Salem-Keizer pitcher Adam Cowart was honored for going 2-0 with a 0.00 earned run average. He allowed just seven hits in 11 2/3 innings, striking out 11. Cowart is first in the NWL for pitching with an 8-0 record and a 0.29 ERA over 61 2/3 innings. With three starts in August, Cowart gave up just one unearned run over 17 2/3 innings.
From the West
The Everett AquaSox are sitting in last place in the NWL’s West Division, but Everett’s Manelik Pimentel hasn’t been slacking off with his offense. Pimentel had five RBIs with two home runs and a two-run double in Everett’s 8-5 victory over Yakima on Thursday. He went 3 for 4 with his double in the first, a two-run homer in the third and solo shot in the seventh. Pimentel hadn’t hit a home run in his previous 19 contests before going 5 for 12 with eight RBIs in his last three games.
From the East
The Colorado Rockies announced Thursday that they have extended their affiliation with the Tri-City Dust Devils through the 2008 season. The Dust Devils are in second place in the East Division of the NWL behind Boise. The two ball clubs signed a two-year extension to their Player Development Contract. The Rockies have been Tri-City’s parent club since the Dust Devils’ inception in 2001.