Opener goes astray
As far as first impressions go, this probably wasn’t what the 2007 Spokane Indians had in mind – especially Fabio Castillo.
Maybe it was opening-day nerves, maybe it was a strange two-run play that gave the Eugene Emeralds a significant lead early in the game. Either way, it wasn’t what the sold-out crowd of 7,067 hoped to see.
Castillo started and worked three innings, giving up five runs and six hits in the top of the second and the Emeralds never trailed, as the Indians fell 6-2 in Tuesday night’s Northwest League season opener at Avista Stadium.
Castillo, a Domincan Republic native, hit Eugene leadoff batter Keith Conlon and gave up back-to-back singles to put himself in an early bases-loaded, no-out jam. Indians catcher Billy Killian made a forceout at home on Conlon before Castillo hit Ray Stokes – sending Brian Joynt in for the Emeralds’ first run.
Castillo failed to field a ball that bounced just beyond his reach, allowing Luis Martinez to reach home for Eugene, and Danny Payne stepped up.
On his first throw, Castillo threw a ball past Killian and it looked as if everyone on the field thought home-plate umpire Jared Gary called time or a foul ball.
“His hands went up in the air and everyone thought the play was dead,” Indians manager Tim Hulett said. “All our guys stopped because they thought the same thing – our catcher stopped moving and nobody was even yelling until all of the sudden their guys weren’t running either. They started running and then we realized, OK, there’s something up.”
Two more runs went up, to be exact. When Eugene’s Luis Martinez and Brian Lauderdale realized what was going on, they both scored.
“(Castillo) just had some things happen that were freakish, and I don’t know how you judge something like that,” Hulett said. “We’ll probably have to wait until his next start – but I thought he threw the ball all right. But it’s more than just pitching – you’ve got to field your position, cover bases, you’ve got to back up, and those are things that he’s got to get better at.”
Zach Brown knocked in the final run of the inning on a short grounder to shortstop Andres James, whose throw to first was late.
The Indians scored both of their runs in the bottom of the inning before second baseman Renny Osuna hit a grounder to third that Joynt fielded with ease.
The Emeralds scored one more run on an Indians throwing error to third base.
Although the result wasn’t ideal, Hulett was still pleased with a lot of what he saw.
“After that second inning it was just a freakish play, I don’t think that’s nerves,” said Hulett. “It was a freakish play and they scored five. We came back in the next inning and scored two, so I felt very good about the guys. They were calm, their at-bats were good, and our bullpen did a great job of putting up a few goose eggs
“Offensively, we got a little sloppy after that. You know, guys trying to turn on one and hit a home run and really didn’t have as good of at-bats as they did the first couple of innings. Hopefully, we’ll come out stronger tomorrow.”