July 24, 2009 Tri City 8 - Aquasox 5

The rainbow appeared over the right field fence in the top of the third inning - it wasn't a sign of good things to come... In the fourth inning a light rain started that lasted until the seventh inning and as you can see from my scorebook, it caused havoc with my water soluble ink...

Here's what I remember of the game...

The Tri City Dustdevils (a Colorado Rockies farm team) started 7 left handed hitters against Aquasox starter Chris Kirkland who, not surprisingly, throws right handed. The first 9 pitches of the game by Kirkland were strikes (two strikeouts and a strike on the third batter). Then he gave up a single to Ben Paulson and proceeded to lose his control - walking the next two hitters to load the bases before getting behind to Kevin Clark who hit a two run single. He finally got Austin Rauch to ground out to third base. It was a much more painful inning than we envisioned as we counted the strikes at the start... Kirkland ended up giving up 8 runs in 5 innings on 9 hits (and just those two first inning walks) along with two wild pitches and one hit batter. He struck out six. Not a very impressive night facing all those lefties.

Kirkland was followed by Christian Staehely and Jonathan Hesketh (his first appearance for the Sox) who both pitched well and gave up no runs. Staehely got two strikeouts in 3 innings and Hesketh one in one inning while pitching around a leadoff double.

One of our favorite players Hawkins Gebbers left the game after the top of the first - possibly injured.

Ryan Royster continued his hot hitting, going 2-5 with a home run half way up the screen in centerfield. He also made a bone head play in the first inning when he headed for second as the pitcher was in the stretch and looking at him. He was easily run down.

This was our first chance to see James Jones who was the Mariner 4th round pick in the 2009 draft. He played right field and bats left handed. He had two sharply hit singles in two at bats. His fielding was acceptable - though he didn't get rid of the ball very quickly on one play where Clark hit a single to right field. He hesitated before throwing to third base (missing the cut off man but almost getting the runner, Matthes.

The Tri City leadoff hitter was Tim Wheeler - their first round draft pick in 2009. He had two singles and two strikeouts on the night in five plate appearances. One of the singles was on a play where Mario Martinez at third made a clumsy dive to snag the ball and then couldn't get to his feet to throw to first. It looks like a line drive in the box score, but wasn't.

In the third inning the Tri City DH Bo Bowman hit a home run to right that carried over the grassy seating area and over the double tall billboards behind it. Pat Dillon on the radio said one Aquasox had done that and several visiting players - but it's pretty rare. For the Aquasox Gerardo Avila also had a long hit in the same general direction (like he did the last game we attended) but it was easily foul.

The Tri City shortstop Joey Wong was very impressive defensively. He made a couple acrobatic plays at second - once to get a double play and the second time to be just late when it looked like he had no chance. He also made a very nice play in the hole at short to get a runner at first. He isn't nearly as impressive with the bat though...

Here's the story in the Herald.

Here's the box score.