A Grip on Sports: Hot hitters, hot pitching and hot on the road has helped the Indians rise to the top of the Northwest League in the second half
A GRIP ON SPORTS • A thunderstorm rolled through the neighborhood early this morning, in a rare show of natural power so early in the day. It got us thinking about how well the Spokane Indians have played lately.
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• Minor League Baseball, as opposed to its MLB overseers, has a hard-out halfway through the season. None of this wishy-washy All-Star-break stuff, coming nearly 100 games in. A true first half, with a standings reset and everything.
The only time that ever happened in the Bigs, a mid-season players’ strike forced it upon the owners. And probably opened their eyes way back in 1981 to how lucrative another round of playoffs could be.
But such things happen every year in places like Appleton and Altoona, Toledo and Tulsa, Eugene and, yep, Spokane.
Those last two places are important for this exercise in MiLB analytics, at least as those numbers apply in the Northwest.
How so? The Eugene Emeralds ran away with the Northwest League’s first-half title. The Ems, as they are affectionately known in the community Sen. Bluto Blutarsky once called home, finished the High-A first half having won 42 of the 66 games. That was seven more than runner-up Tri-City. And one of the few highlights of the San Francisco Giants’ year, which any MLB fan knows has been a disaster.
The first half crown assured Eugene a spot in the league’s end of season playoffs. Where it will face always tough TBD. As in “to be determined.”
Sure, there are still 60 games left in the regular season. That’s about as close to an eternity as baseball has. But if the season were to end today … well, besides season ticket holders storming Bobby Brett’s office, the Spokane Indians would be the ones filling the TBD role.
Yep, the same – sort of, but we’ll get into that in a second – Indians that finished 29-37 in the first half, just a late warm streak, and two games, above last-place Vancouver.
That warm streak wasn’t just like one of those weeks around here in early April. It was not a mirage. It was a full-blown prophecy. One that has taken root since the standings reset 16 games ago. And bloomed into something special the past 12 days. In that time, the Indians have played 10 games. Won all of them. No one in the league, first or second half, has put together a winning streak of such length.
Not surprisingly, Spokane is in first place, two games ahead of the Mariners’ High-A franchise in Everett.
Will the Indians continue this roll through July, August and into the September postseason? Predicting that may be even harder than hitting a Jacob Misiorowski fastball.
Heck, it’s hard to even know if the lineup the Indians run out on the field in Eugene tonight will bear any resemblance to the one that will hand out Harry Potter bobbleheads July 17 at Avista. Yes, the “Boy Who Lived” has a bobblehead. But no, the Indian players won’t be giving it away at the gate before they face Everett. At least I don’t believe so. Those chores are long gone from the MiLB experience, though the lengthy bus rides so vividly shared in “Bull Durham” still exist.
The team that loads the bus in Eugene on Sunday evening, headed back to Spokane and the league-wide four-day MLB All-Star hiatus, might not include Tommy Hopfe, the guy whose hot bat seems to have ignited his teammates’ recent barbecuing of the rest of the league.
Hopfe has had a hit in every contest since June 5. That’s 22 consecutive games. A franchise record as a High-A team. Heck, since June 1, Hopfe, who has played five defensive positions, including a one-inning stint behind the plate, is hitting .381 with six homers and 19 runs batted in. That’s really good. Good enough to join Jack O’Dowd in Double-A Hartford, a promotion the catcher/DH earned a week ago?
Maybe. It’s up to the Rockies’ front office.
O’Dowd started the season at Low-A Fresno. Was a force there. Continued to be after being moved up to Spokane. And now is doing the same at Double-A.
That’s the nature of the MiLB experience. For the players and the franchises. Not only does it help fuel program sales, it also means the team playing this week might not have all its main pieces come playoff time.
Prospects like O’Dowd and Hopfe can supply lineup thunder one night and blow out of town before breakfast at Hogan’s the next day. High-A is a live-in-the-moment level of the game. Right now, the Indians are all having their moment. And the rest of the Northwest League is dangling in their breeze.
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WSU: Around the Pac-12, want to watch the conference’s football games on your TV? Here’s how. … In basketball news, a former manager has been charged after an investigation into the gambling scandal that rocked the Fresno State men’s program during the 2024-25 season. … Around the West Coast and the nation, never think the Pac-12’s breakup had anything to do with on-field performance. Remember, half the team Big Ten titles in the recently finished year were won by the four former Pac-12 schools. And Arizona just won the Big 12’s Commissioner’s Cup for overall excellence. … The Wildcats’ athletic director is not headed to Wisconsin. There was a worry. … Deion Sanders is not in College Football 27. There may be a financial reason for that. Whatever it is, it hasn’t hurt Colorado’s recruiting. … Arizona State’s staff is pretty intact year-over-year.
Gonzaga: One of the Zags heralded men’s recruits won’t be in town this month. Juwan Ekanga-Ehawa will be busy. The 6-foot-6, 18-year-old guard will be representing his home country, France, in the upcoming U-20 FIBA EuroBasket in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Theo Lawson shares that news in this story.
EWU and Idaho: The Big Sky Conference office Tuesday announced the upcoming football kickoff times for league games. Dan Thompson took a few minutes to delve into the start times for the Eagles and Vandals. Eastern has one night game, a 7:30 start at UC Davis Oct. 3. That game will be televised on ESPN2. Meanwhile, the Vandals will have three of their first five games on either ESPN (Cal Poly, Aug. 28 and Montana State, Oct. 2) or ESPNU (Utah, Sept. 3). … Elsewhere in the Big Sky, we can pass along stories on the kickoff times covering Montana, Southern Utah and UC Davis.
Indians: The 10th consecutive win came last night in Eugene, with Jacob Humphrey’s two home runs leading the way to a 12-4 victory. Spokane has won all seven of its second-half road games. Dave Nichols has all that and more in this game story.
Mariners: The Mediocre M’s played another mediocre game in Miami on Tuesday night. Fell behind 4-0 as Bryan Woo pitched mediocre on the road again. Rallied and took a 5-4 lead in the eighth, after wasting two golden chances to score a whole bunch more. The waste cost them as the Marlins tied it in the eighth and won it in the 10th, 6-5. … Want more mediocrity? Sorry, you’re not going to get it in the latest edition of the Press Box Podcast, featuring the deans of Spokane sports talk, Dennis Patchin, Rick Lukens and my neighborhood compadre Bud Nameck. … Speaking of mediocrity, there are seven umpires, some of them actually really good, who have already decided to retire at the end of the season. … Dom Canzone has hit his way into the lineup full time. … Could there be three more M’s named to the All-Star Game?
Storm: A young Seattle player was named to the WNBA All-Star Game.
Seahawks: Mike Macdonald is playing in a golf tournament? Hey, he works for us. And he needs to be spending 25 hours a day getting ready for another Super Bowl run. Leave the golf to the amateurs.
World Cup: Did you know the World Cup is still going on around these parts? Why? All three host nations are out. Just switch the rest of the tourney to Argentina or France or somewhere. The Egyptian team certainly felt as if it was playing in Buenos Aires or Córdoba yesterday, considering how its 3-2 loss to Lionel Messi’s team was adjudicated, especially by the VAR official. And who in American wants to sit around and watch Switzerland and Colombia play for a couple hours and not score? The Swiss prevailed in penalty kicks. … The U.S. loss earned the wrath of a former U.S. star, was watched by more people in this country than any soccer match ever and may just have ruined most of the viewers’ memory of the tournament itself. It should not. … The U.S. finished where it most often does. … Why didn’t the Sounders’ Cristian Roldan see the pitch? He was hurt. … Lumen Field never left in our eyes. Neither did the experience.
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• Early morning thunderstorms are unusual in our area. They are mainly a late-afternoon experience. Heck, the rain hit today while our sprinklers were on, which seemed a bit of a waste. The accompanying booms didn’t do much for our dog’s psyche either. Poor guy. Until later …
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• Photos: The Spokesman-Review, Getty Images, Tribune News Service, James Snook