AppleSox Put It All Together; Down Pippins

YAKIMA, Wash. – Following a 14-inning marathon at Walla Walla, the Wenatchee AppleSox (21-18, 17-17) were able to get back to .500 in WCL play as they knocked off the Yakima Valley Pippins (21-13) by ten runs, 11-1, Thursday night.

For days, AppleSox coach Ed Knaggs has talked about improvement. The team was putting together quality wins, but falling just short in the run column.

Last night, the team put together a quality outing for a win, their third-straight against Yakima Valley, dating back to a WCL-opening series in June.

Brandon Bailey was the starter for the AppleSox Thursday night and approached his limited summer pitch count rather rapidly, making it through just three innings. Over those three frames, he shut out Yakima and got out of a third-inning, runners at second and third with no outs, jam.

The AppleSox chipped in with a run a piece in the second and third innings as Ty Jackson scored on a Joe Gillette sacrifice fly to right field and Tyler Frost came around on Sam Brown ground out after tripling with one out in the third.

Bailey did not log enough innings to earn a win and he handed the game over to yesterday’s new AppleSox pitcher, Travis Cook.

Cook, intended to play at Central Washington next year, saw a runner reach base on an error and promptly erased any idea of a threat with a 6-4-3 double play. He cruised for the rest of his appearance, retiring the next four batters he saw. Cook earned the victory.

The AppleSox added a fourth run to make it 4-0 in the top of the fourth, as Joe Gillette singled home Ty Jackson.

The AppleSox big scoring came in the sixth and eighth innings as they shoved across three runs in each of the frames. The three in the eighth were assisted by an error, intentional walk, and batter hit by pitch. It took only one hit to set up the trio of runs.

In the eighth, two out hitting was the key for the AppleSox. They rattled off four two-out singles, started by relatively new face, Cole Kreuter.

Colton  Loomis worked for four innings out of the bullpen and found his groove quickly. En route to the save he allowed three hits and just one run.

The AppleSox added two runs in the ninth, as Nick Brooks and Kreuter both hit singles after Michael McCann and Kyle Vanderkin made it to scoring position.

WEN   0 1 1  1 0 3   0 3 2     11  14  2

YAK    0 0 0  0 0 0   0 1 0      1    7   2

WP – Travis Cook

LP – Austin Woodward

S – Colton Loomis

An “Extra” Look Back:

Wednesday’s fourteen-inning, 9-9, tie was broken when Andrew Mendenhall hit a single to right center to walk it off for Walla Walla.

Joe Gillette and Ty Jackson helped extend the game for Wenatchee as Gillette hit a grand slam in the seventh inning to tie the game at eight and Jackson hit an RBI single in the eighth to tie it at nine.

Matt Majors worked an astounding 5.1 innings out of the bullpen, while not allowing a run, although the AppleSox did leave runners stranded in scoring position more than once in extra innings.

Clark McKitrick and Shaun Vetrovec held well out of the AppleSox bullpen and gave the club multiple chances to win the game, but their four and 3.2 inning efforts fell just short.

WEN   0 0 0  1 1 1   5 1 0   0 0 0   0 0     9   21  1

WW    3 0 2  0 0 3   1 0 0   0 0 0   0 1    10  13  0

WP – Omar Porras

LP – Clark McKitrick

S –