Bats Stay Hot, Sox Sweep Falcons

Max Hartman hit his first home run of the summer and the Wenatchee AppleSox defeated the Kelowna Falcons, 14-7, on Wednesday night at Paul Thomas Sr. Stadium.

Hartman drove in four runs, including blasting a two-out, two-run shot in the bottom of the second to put the AppleSox in the lead for good. He scored twice and leads the West Coast League with 25 runs.

Roberto Gonzalez and Elijah Pelayo recorded four hits apiece as Wenatchee (17-7) recorded a season-high 19 hits. Gonzalez drove in three runs while scoring twice while Pelayo plated one run and scored four times.

Wenatchee picked up its fourth straight win and third sweep of the summer to move a game-and-a-half ahead of Edmonton and 2.5 games ahead of Bellingham for first in the North Division. The Bells defeated the Riverhawks, 8-4, Wednesday night.

The AppleSox scored in each of the first six innings but had to claw back from two different early deficits. Kelowna opened the game up with two runs in the top of the first and Wenatchee tallied two of its own in its first opportunity at the plate. James Castagnola plated the first run after three straight singles and then Cannon Peery singled in the tying run.

The Falcons retook the lead on a single and a double to open the second inning before Hartman helped the AppleSox grab the lead permanently. Gonzalez drove in the tying run with a sacrifice fly just before Hartman’s two-run shot.

From there the AppleSox poured it on by scoring nine runs over the next four frames. Their most impressive frame came in the sixth when they scored three runs all with two outs and four straight hitters reached on two-out singles.

Garrett Ahern (1-0) earned the victory by recording his longest outing of the season. He surrendered three runs in the first two innings but only gave up one over his final three frames. He struck out five, walked one and allowed six hits.

Wenatchee gets its second off day of the season on Thursday before wrapping up the first half at Bellingham this weekend. The AppleSox’ magic number to eliminate the Bells from winning the first half is one since they would be unable to reach 18 wins. Two AppleSox wins this weekend would clinch the first half outright because although the Riverhawks can still reach 19 victories, they would not hold the tiebreaker as they have six losses in division play and the AppleSox only have three.