AppleSox Look To Salvage Series With Sweets
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The Wenatchee AppleSox face the Walla Walla Sweets at 6:05 p.m. tonight at Borleske Stadium in the finale of their three-game road trip.
The AppleSox are looking to win the final game of the series after dropping the first two games. Walla Walla scored twice with two outs in the eighth inning to take their only lead of the game and win the opener, 4-3. The AppleSox out-hit the Sweets, 14-12, yesterday but fell 11-7 after falling behind 5-0 after two innings.
Walla Walla has now won four consecutive series but has not swept any and has not swept any team this summer. Wenatchee has been swept three times and has swept three teams.
The AppleSox are tied with the Bellingham Bells for first place in the North Division in the second half. If the season ended today the AppleSox would earn the second-half playoff berth because of the tie since the Bells already won the first half playoff spot. Wenatchee is tied with Kamloops for the second-best overall record in the North Division. The AppleSox have to either win the North Division in the second half or tie with Bellingham to earn the second half playoff spot. If they do not do either of those then they just need to have one of the four-best overall records in the North Division to earn a playoff berth, but they will not have home-field advantage in the first round.
Joichiro Oyama reached base safely in all five plate appearances yesterday with his 17th multi-hit game and fifth three-hit effort of the summer. He leads the West Coast League in at-bats, runs, hits and stolen bases and is chasing several single-season records. Oyama scored twice yesterday to match the league’s single-season runs record and he can set the new high mark with a run today. The incoming junior at UC Irvine is eight away from tying the single-season stolen bases mark and is three triples away from tying the single-season high for triples.
Quincy Vassar starts for the AppleSox in his final appearance of the summer. The southpaw from Vanguard is 1-3 with a 4.45 ERA and his coming off a dominant, albeit brief, effort last week. Vassar tossed four scoreless innings and struck out six Kamloops NorthPaws in Wenatchee’s 16-4 win this past Tuesday. He walked one and allowed one hit on 48 pitches and was pulled with the AppleSox ahead, 13-0, so that he could start tonight.
Vassar, a Brewster native, wraps up his summer with the AppleSox after tonight’s game. He is 1-3 with a 4.45 ERA in eight games (six starts) and has struck out 37, walked nine and allowed 34 hits. Vassar has not allowed any runs in his last 11 innings on the mound, going all the way back to when he tossed seven shutout innings against the Nanaimo NightOwls on July 8. He has a 4.30 ERA as a starting pitcher and has not allowed a run in half of his starts.
Walla Walla sends Hayden Hattenbach to the bump for his third start of the season. The righty from UC Santa Barbara is making his second start of the summer and is 0-2 with a 7.04 ERA in seven appearances. He has struck out 12, walked 12 and allowed 33 hits in 23 innings. Hattenbach’s last start came a week ago against Kelowna when he allowed four runs (three earned) on 13 hits, four walks and five strikeouts in eight innings. The Sweets won, 6-4, but Hattenbach got a no-decision.
Tonight’s game can be listened to live on kcsyfm.com on your computer or smart phone. If you live in Washington you can listen on your radio on any of the following stations:
· Wenatchee: 93.9 FM
· East Wenatchee/Rock Island: 98.1 FM
· Lake Chelan Valley: 95.3 FM
· Brewster/Pateros: 101.3 FM
· Okanogan Valley: 101.9 FM
· Omak/Tonasket/Oroville: 97.7 FM
· Methow Valley: 106.3 FM
Coverage of tonight’s game begins at 6:10 p.m. with the Horan Estates Winery Pregame Show. Stick around after the game to hear the postgame show with player and coach interviews if the AppleSox win.
