Vancouver sent eight men to the plate in the fifth inning and five of them came home.  In stark contrast to that scoring splurge, the rest of the game felt more like an arid desert.  The Vancouver Canadians beat the Hillsboro Hops, 5-2.

Vancouver Spends 1/4 of All Plate Appearances in One Inning

By stark contrast, I mean the difference between desert and oasis.  By comparison, the eight batters sent to the plate is equal to one fourth of all batters Vancouver sent to the plate.  The other seven innings only had 24 opportunities.  The fifth inning had five of their seven hits.  All five of their runs.  The running spread of batters per inning looks like this: 3-4-3-4-8-3-4-3.  It looks like one of those puzzles where you are asked which number doesn’t belong with the rest of them?

Up to that point, Hops starter Justin Vernia (L, 1-3) faced 14 batters and retired twelve of them.  Four strikeouts, four fly outs, one groundout, one walk erased by being caught stealing and a second walk erased by a double play.  Vernia cruised through the first four innings looking like he would make it through the fifth and maybe pick up a win.  Until, he started the fifth.

After giving up his third walk of the game to Luis De Los Santos leading off the inning, Vernia got a pop up to third baseman AJ Vukovich, a newcomer to the Hops.  Things looked smooth.  Then, Eric Rivera and Zac Cook with back to back singles brought De Los Santos home for the game’s first score.  Rafael Lantigua doubled Rivera Home.  Cook scored on Tanner Morris’ sac fly.

Vancouver’s Orelvis Martinez Cleans Bases

Now, there were two outs.  All Vernia needed was that last third out.  But, Orelvis Martinez wanted his turn to have fun.  That fun was defined by a two-run homer making the score 5-0, Canadians.  But, the story does have an ending.  Vernia got his third out by getting the next batter, Spencer Horwitz to ground out to Vukovich at third.

Compared to the Hops’ zero on the scoreboard, Vancouver’s five looked huge.  Getting base runners wasn’t the problem.  Hillsboro had six in the first seven innings.  The problem was getting them home.  Finally, in the eighth, Hillsboro found home.

The Hops first two batters reached base with no outs.  Jorge Barrosa reached by an error on second baseman De Los Santos while Eduardo Diaz singled.  After a strikeout, Andy Yerzy and Blaze Alexander brought them both home on back to back singles.  5-2 would become the final score.

The same problem plagued the Hops as the Canadians.  Their splurge inning came in the eighth.  The rest of their game also felt like an arid desert.  Though their running spread wasn’t as dry as Vancouver’s, the Hops’ oasis also wasn’t as wet.  Their running line for the game is: 4-3-4-5-3-4-3-6-3.

Vancouver Van Eyk Keeps Hops in Desert

Firstly, CJ Van Eyk (W, 3-5) started the game for the Canadians and flew through five innings, spreading out five hits.  Secondly, Parker Carraci (S, 8) came on to close the ninth after the Hops’ two runs in the previous inning.  Moreover, he only needed to face three batters to accomplish that feat.

Standings

As a result, the win helped the Vancouver Canadians (36-43) keep pace with Spokane two games ahead of them.  They also gained ground (15.5 games back) on leader Everett who lost tonight.  In addition, the win flipped them past the Hillsboro Hops (35-43) and into fourth place by a half game.

Further, Vancouver grabs the first game to lead the series 1-0.  Both teams meet Wednesday night for game#2.  Subsequently, the game is at 7:05 and you can listen to it on 620 AM radio.

Box Score

Week 13 Recap

By

Greg Stoker

@GDStoker