Indians drubbed

The last time he started a home game two weeks ago against Vancouver, Michael Kirkman threw 11 balls in a row before he managed to find the strike zone.

Kirkman’s woes continued Monday night in the Indians 8-2 defeat to the Yakima Bears.

Kirkman, who entered the game with a team-high 9.50 earned run average, dug the Indians into a deep hole right from the beginning.

In two innings, Kirkman walked four batters and allowed seven runs before the coaching staff put him out of his misery and replaced him with Keisuke Ueno.

But the dismal tone of the night had already been set, and the Indians never managed to dig themselves out of the hole Kirkman put them in.

“Seven runs in two innings,” was all Indians manager Tim Hulett would say when asked whether the Indians’ pitching problems had resulted directly in the loss.

The only bright spot in the game for the Indians was rookie Tim Smith’s two-run home run in the first inning.

With Renny Osuna on first base, Smith – the Texas Rangers’ seventh-round draft pick this year – drove the ball out to right field, just inside the foul pole for his first professional home run.

Despite the spark that Smith had provided, the Indians could not get the bats going, and they ended the night with four hits to Yakima’s 12.

“I felt we were kinda nonchalant the whole game,” Smith said. “And once they got off a few runs, we let the little parts of the game slip away. It was a lack of focus.”

The Indians committed eight errors as the defense struggled to compensate for the team’s pitching problems.

Second baseman Matt Lawson racked up four errors on the night and went 0 for 4 at the plate which put an end to his 14-game hitting streak.

“The streak was in the back of my mind, but having good at bats was my priority and that just didn’t happen tonight,” Lawson said. “As for the game, you gotta get some momentum going, and it just seemed like we were on the wrong end of it the entire time.

“I mean, we had a two-run home run right off the bat, but when you’re down 7-2, it’s like ‘where do we start’ you know?”

But Hulett hasn’t given up on Kirkman, who is now 0-4 on the season.

“Kirkman has great hands, he’s been pretty good in the pen, and he throws a lot of strikes there,” Hulett said. “Maybe it’s just a transition thing from the bullpen to the mound because he’s got great stuff. So we’re gonna try and do some new things with him, like have him face more quality hitters.”

Monday’s defeat drops the Indians to 10-17 on the season. Spokane has lost nine of its last 10 games and is struggling to find some sort of team momentum.

Lawson thinks that to find that momentum, the young team first needs to find its identity.

“We have to find our identity at some point because we don’t really have one right now, and with losses building upon each other you have to get that momentum going from game to game not just point to point,” Lawson said. “Identity of a team is something you can stand by all the time. Like when things aren’t going well, you can always go back to thinking, ‘We’re good at this or this.’

“Right now we don’t have a lot of things going for us.”