Indians retake East Division lead with shutout of Boise

The Spokane Indians evened up the series in a big way when they shut out the Boise Hawks 3-0 at Avista Stadium on Saturday night to retake the Northwest League East Division lead in front of 5,109 at Avista Stadium.

“That’s just a huge game for us,” catcher Jonathan Greene said. “The pitchers did awesome to pitch a shutout. It’s a great win.”

Starter Jacob Brigham earned the win for Spokane (27-30), and is now 5-3 on the season. Brigham and the Indians’ pitching staff allowed only four hits and struck out eight. Andrew Laughter earned his ninth save of the season when he came in in the ninth and struck out two batters before fielding a Dylan Johnston hit to end the game.

But it was a different story in the opposing bullpen.

Boise’s pitchers had a nightmarish nine innings. Dustin Sasser, Blake Parker and Audy Santana hit four batters, walked five, and allowed nine hits.

A seventh-inning pitch from Parker pegged second baseman Matt Lawson in head. Lawson went down holding his head and lay motionless for about a minute before sitting up with help from the trainer and walking off the field without assistance.

Indians manager Tim Hulett later reported that Lawson was fine, “just shaken up.”

Two batters later, Parker hit Greene in the shoulder.

“Oh that was just a changeup that he lost control of,” Greene said. “I don’t think it was intentional.”

Hitting two batters disrupted Parker’s rhythm and he struggled to close out the inning, loading the bases and walking another batter before he managed to strike out Timothy Rodriguez to end the inning.

“I had some trouble with control,” said a genuinely contrite Parker after the game, “I’ve a converted catcher, so I haven’t been pitching for very long. It’s the first time I’ve done this, and something like that happens, it shakes you up a little bit. I felt really bad.”

But Parker wasn’t the only pitcher having issues Saturday night.

Sasser managed to hit Victor Barrios and Lawson in the second and third innings, respectively. Santana replaced Parker in the eighth inning and proceeded to walk three batters and allow two runs.

Woes aside, Boise pitching coach Tom Pratt was surprisingly positive about his pitching staff’s performance.

“Blake did well. He hit those guys but he pitched out of it,” Pratt said. “This is probably his third game pitching. He’s a very fierce competitor, but a very sensitive young man.

“He got shook up after hitting that first guy, and it took him a couple of hitters to rebound, but he did fine and threw a clutch pitch: that 3-2 breaking ball.”

In Sasser’s case, hitting Lawson and Barrios was collateral damage in the Eastern Carolina product’s ongoing quest to learn to pitch inside.

“These kids at this level are very young and inexperienced at pitching against this kind of competition,” Pratt said. “So we have to teach them certain things: and one is to pitch inside.

“He threw a breaking ball down and around the back foot, and it happened to hit a guy in the back foot. It’s part of the game.”

With the series tied at 1-1, and the Indians leading the division by a half game, Spokane (27-30) and Boise (27-31) play the deciding game of the series tonight.