Canadians cool off Indians
No comeback kids on this night.
The late-inning magic that led the Spokane Indians on a three-game winning streak was no where to be found.
Instead, Tuesday night belonged to Vancouver’s Danny Hamblin, whose four RBIs led the Canadians to a 8-2 win over the Indians in Northwest League play in front of a crowd of 4,007 at Avista Stadium.
Hamblin struck early with a two-run homer – his second of the season – in the first inning off Spokane starter Derek Holland and drove in two more runs in the sixth inning with a double to left field that scored Matt Ray and Michael Richard.
“We knew he was a good hitter, we recognized that right away,” said Indians manager Tim Hulett, “but he always seemed to come up in situations where we couldn’t really pitch around him, so we were stuck pitching to him and tonight was a good night for him.”
The Canadians first baseman finished the night 2 for 4 and his four RBIs brought his season total to 15, good for first in the NWL.
“I got in counts to hit well in and I drove some fastballs and am seeing the ball pretty good right now,” said Hamblin. “It’s not anything different that I did, just my job.
“We just needed to close out a ball game, we got whupped the first game and let it slip away last night – we’ve been sitting on 4-2 leads – and tonight we closed it out. We’ve dropped the last two games, so it was time to get back to the winning ways.”
Hamblin, acquired in the tenth round by the Oakland Athletics in this year’s First-Year Player Draft, became Arkansas’ all-time leading home run hitter (57) in 2007. He hit .276 with 13 doubles, 22 homers and 60 RBIs and started in 63 of the 64 games he played in last season for the Razorbacks.
When he was originally drafted by the Athletics in 2006 in the ninth round, Hamblin held off because he wanted to play his senior season.
“I have no regrets, I’m in the same position I would have been last year right now, I think I made the perfect decision.”
The Indians (7-8) were flat offensively against Vancouver (10-5) after three straight games of getting it done at the plate.
“We didn’t have much offense tonight,” Hulett acknowledged. “We just didn’t get it done, we got down and never really came back from that.”
Indians shortstop Davis Stoneburner was the only player for Spokane with multiple hits, finishing 2 for 4.
The Indians pitching staff collected 15 strikeouts in the outing, but walked eight batters as Holland took the loss to fall to 0-2.
“We always have a lot of strikeouts,” Hulett said. “What probably hurt us tonight was that we had a lot of walks. Some nights we have high strikeouts and also high walk counts and tonight was one of those nights.”