AppleSox Embark On Six-Game Road Trip, Beginning In Nanaimo
/
The Wenatchee AppleSox are back on the road tonight to face the Nanaimo NightOwls at 6:35 p.m. at Serauxmen Stadium. This is the first of a six-game road trip that concludes on Sunday at Victoria.
At the conclusion of this road trip the AppleSox will have played 12 of their last 15 WCL games away from home. Wenatchee is 11-4 on the road this summer, including 5-1 in Canada. The AppleSox are 30-8 against Canadian teams since the start of last season and are 13-2 this season.
Wenatchee had its first off day yesterday since June 26 and looks to pick right where it left off at. The AppleSox played each of the previous days and went 8-5 in that stretch, with one non-league loss included.
Wenatchee capped the busy couple of weeks with a three-game sweep of the Kamloops NorthPaws over the weekend. The AppleSox took Friday’s game with a 7-6 victory in the bottom of the 12th for their fourth walkoff victory of the summer. Trent Liolios went 2-for-3 with a home run in a 5-1 win on Saturday and Easton Amundson drove in three runs on Sunday, including with a two-run homer in the seventh.
Sunday’s game was Amundson’s last of the season and it will be up to players like Liolios and MJ Sweeney to replace him. Amundson finished his summer leading the West Coast League in home runs (7), second in slugging percentage (.578), third in runs (26), tied for third in RBI (25) and tied for fourth in walks (20). Liolios made his first two starts at first base on Saturday and Sunday and went 4-for-8 against Kamloops with 5 RBI. Sweeney has recorded hits in each of seven of his first nine games in WCL play and has already driven in five run. He is tied with Marcus Harrison for the most starts at first base among active players (5), though Harrison has not played since July 2.
Nanaimo enters tonight’s game red-hot with six consecutive victories thanks to back-to-back sweeps of Port Angeles and Walla Walla. Tonight is only the NightOwls’ seventh game of the against a team currently holding a winning record. Nanaimo dropped each of the previous six instances by being swept by Kelowna and Bellingham. They are 17-7 against the rest of their opponents, which are a combined 40-83. The NightOwls’ final 24 games are against teams with a combined 88-70.
Quincy Vassar gets the ball for Wenatchee in his fifth start of the season. The left-hander at Vanguard is 1-1 with a 2.57 ERA, 19 strikeouts, 11 walks and 14 hits in 21 innings. Vassar has tossed at least five innings in every game this summer and in 10-of-12 starts in two seasons with the AppleSox. He tossed seven scoreless innings and struck out seven NightOwls on July 8 last summer at Serauxmen Stadium.
Vassar is opposed by fellow southpaw Nathan Buchan. The incoming sophomore at the University of Redlands is 2-2 with a 4.41 ERA, 12 strikeouts, nine walks and 18 hits over 18.1 innings in five games (all starts). Buchan did not make it out of the first inning in his last start on June 27, surrendering seven runs (five earned) on five hits, four walks and one strikeout in one-third of an inning against Yakima Valley.
Fans can tune in to the action tonight and all season long on KCSY Sunny FM. Pregame coverage presented by Kenady Real Estate Group begins at 6:10 p.m. You can listen online worldwide at kcsyfm.com, the TuneIn radio app or on one of the following translators.
93.9 FM in Wenatchee
95.3 FM in the Lake Chelan Valley
97.7 FMin Omak, Riverside, Tonasket and Oroville
98.1 FM in East Wenatchee, Rock Island and Quincy
101.3 FM in Brewster and Pateros
106.3 FM in the Methow Valley
All West Coast League games can also be watched on wcleague.watch.pixellot.tv.
