Merchants drop Frogs

Published 10:11 pm Sunday, June 17, 2007

EVERETT – The Everett Merchants play perpetually in the shadow of the Everett AquaSox.

The AquaSox play before crowds of thousands at Everett Memorial Stadium, featuring players beginning down a road they hope leads to the major leagues. The Merchants’ roster consists mostly of players who can only dream of such heights, and using the same home venue they play before a handful of friends and family.

But for one day the Merchants can lay claim to the position of prominence.

The Merchants snapped a tie by scoring six runs in the top of the eighth inning, and the semipros upset the professionals Sunday afternoon, prevailing 10-5 in the fourth annual Everett Cup.

“Today we showed the gap isn’t as big as a lot of people think it is,” said Merchants shortstop and Snohomish High School graduate Kevin Rodland, who reached base four times, scored two runs and stole two bases.

The Everett Cup annually pits the Pacific International League’s Merchants, a collection mainly of locally-based college freshmen and sophomores, against the Class A Northwest League’s AquaSox in an exhibition game preparing the AquaSox for their season. The previous three installments were won handily by the Sox, with the Sox prevailing 15-4 and 15-3 the previous two years.

However, the tables turned dramatically Sunday as the Merchants used their three standout pitchers to keep the AquaSox bats quiet, then took advantage of Sox mistakes to put runs on the board.

“This is the best Father’s Day present I’ve probably ever had,” Merchants manager Harold Pyatte said.

“After four years we finally came out and played a pretty darn good ballgame,” Pyatte added. “We got some great pitching out of our staff, we hit with them and we played great defense. We’re just happy to be on the field with those guys, displaying our talents, so we’re really happy with the win.”

Meanwhile, the AquaSox struggled in their tuneup game for the Northwest League season, which begins Tuesday at home against Yakima. The Sox pitchers combined on nine walks and six hit batters, and the fielders made four errors, three of which proved costly during the decisive eighth inning.

“It was a little bit soft out there and muddy, but that’s no excuse,” AquaSox manager Mike Tosar said. “We’ve still got to go out there and perform. We didn’t do that on the mound. We didn’t get the ball over the plate and we hit a few batters today.”

Deybis Benitez was one of the few highlights for the AquaSox, going 3-for-4 with three runs.

Despite the loss, Tosar didn’t consider defeat at the hands of semipro competition as a reason for alarm.

“Absolutely not,” Tosar responded when asked. “It’s an exhibition game. We were running guys out there, we weren’t staying with ourstarters.”

And while the Merchants may not have the same type of overall talent as the AquaSox, what they do have this year are a handful of Northwest League-caliber pitchers.

J.T. Zink was pitching in the Boston Red Sox organization before being released in late May. Leovet Cardoso Serpa, the notorious switch-pitcher, played for the Cuban national team. And Mason Tobin, the former ace at Everett Community College, was a 16th-round selection in this year’s draft.

The trio was every bit a match for the AquaSox bats. Zink breezed through three scoreless innings, giving up just one hit and one walk while striking out four. Cardoso Serpa – who pitched mostly left-handed but did face one batter pitching right-handed – was solid in his three innings, giving up three runs. Tobin, who ended up with the win, threw two strong innings, hitting 93 on the speed gun.

“We faced some pretty good arms out there,” Tosar said. “The Merchants threw three guys who have good arms and good breaking pitches. Any time you have a good arm and mix in a breaking pitch you’re going to be tough to hit.”

That pitching kept the Merchants afloat until they broke the game open in the eighth. With the score tied 4-4, the Merchants took full advantage of AquaSox mistakes. Sox pitchers Aaron Solomon, who took the loss, and Marquis Pettis combined to walk two batters and hit another three in the inning. Then errors by catcher Jeff Dunbar and shortstop Ogui Diaz each allowed two runs to score. Throw an RBI double by Kyle Decater and an RBI single by Jake Hammons into the mix, and the Merchants found themselves with a commanding lead.

But even before that the Merchants were just as likely victors as the AquaSox. The Merchants took a 3-0 lead in the fourth on RBI hits by Rodland, Ben Thielson and Nate Simon. Then after the Sox tied it with three in the fifth, the Merchants regained the lead in the sixth when Rodland scored on a double steal.

“In a game like this, when you’re the obvious underdog, nobody expecting you to win, I think it’s a big thing to get some confidence in yourselves,” Rodland said. “But we’re a good team, so we had confidence in ourselves coming in. We knew we had a shot to win if we played our game.”

Decater was 3-for-5 for the Merchants.