AppleSox Continue Series With Pippins Tonight
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The Wenatchee AppleSox and Yakima Valley Pippins battled in a 12-inning classic and will take on each other again tonight at 6:35 at Yakima County Stadium.
Wenatchee fell to 1-3 in extra-inning games with last night’s loss but still remains in first place in the North Division in the second half because the Edmonton Riverhawks fell to the Port Angeles Lefties, 10-5, on Tuesday night. The Riverhawks and the AppleSox both have identical 12-10 records in the second half but the AppleSox hold the tiebreaker, thanks to winning the season series in late June.
The AppleSox face the Pippins again tonight and look to even up the series. Wenatchee rallied back from a 9-0 deficit to win on Saturday at Kamloops but was unable to hold a couple of large leads last night. The AppleSox led by four runs after four innings and then by five runs after six-and-a-half innings but the Pippins ultimately sent the game to extra innings with a two-out RBI infield single.
Despite the loss, Grant Sherrod drove in three runs and extended his hitting streak 10 games with a 2-for-6 night. The AppleSox first baseman is batting .333 (15-for-45) on this streak, which is the third different AppleSox hitting streak of at least 10 games. Joichiro Oyama and Michael Davinni both recorded 12-game hit streaks earlier this summer.
Conner Ashworth makes his first start of the summer tonight for the AppleSox. The righthander from Montana State University Billings has pitched in three games and has a 1.42 ERA with 10 strikeouts, four walks and four hits in 6.2 innings. Ashworth last pitched a week ago at home against Cowlitz. The Brewster native tossed 1.1 scoreless innings in his first outing since June 17. Ashworth dominated in his first appearance of the summer with the AppleSox on June 7 against Port Angeles. He retired all nine hitters that he faced in order and struck out each of the last eight.
Yakima Valley sends Chris Grothues to the mound for his fifth start of the summer. The southpaw is 3-3 with a 7.66 ERA in nine games with 29 strikeouts, 28 walks and 30 hits in 24.2 innings. Grothues, an incoming freshman at UCLA, last pitched on Sunday, when he tossed a scoreless inning in relief against the Kelowna Falcons. Prior to that he made his most recent start on July 18 and only allowed one hit and three walks over six shutout innings while striking out eight.
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.
