Livan Soto homers in seventh inning, Tri-City Dust Devils beat Spokane Indians 5-4

Livan Soto homered down the left-field line in the seventh inning, and the Tri-City Dust Devils edged the Spokane Indians 5-4 in the finale of a six-game High-A West series at Gesa Stadium in Pasco on Sunday.

The Indians (33-39) split the series with the Dust Devils (28-43). Four of the games in the series were decided by one run, including all three Spokane losses.

Soto’s homer came off Jared Biddy (0-1), who had retired five in a row until that point.

Biddy was in relief of starter Chris McMahon, who went five innings and allowed four runs on seven hits and no walks with four strikeouts.

Tri-City jumped on McMahon early. Soto led the game off with a triple and scored on a single by Carlos Herrera.

The Dust Devils put up three in the second. With two on and no outs, Spencer Griffin doubled to left to plate a run. Soto delivered a sacrifice fly for another run and Herrera’s RBI single made it 4-0.

Spokane got on the board in the fourth. Aaron Schunk led off with a walk and went to third on a Brenton Doyle single. Kyle Datres tripled to right field to clear the bases, then scored on a groundout to make it 4-3.

Datres tied it in the sixth with a solo home run, his seventh of the season. Datres finished 2 for 4 with two runs and three RBIs.

The Indians got something going in the ninth against reliever Kyle Molnar. With two down, AJ Lewis and Cade Harris walked on eight consecutive pitches outside the strike zone. Molnar came back to strike out Jack Blomgren to end it.