EVERETT — The Northwest League’s best-hitting team was held largely silent Friday.
The Everett AquaSox mustered just three hits as they fell 4-0 to the visiting Tri-City Dust Devils before 2,179 fans at Everett Memorial Stadium.
The loss snapped a brief two-game winning streak for the AquaSox (12-11 second half, 26-32 overall) who lost for just the second time in their last six games.
Tri-City (13-10, 33-28) remained in second place in the second-half standings, and are tied with Spokane (13-10, 29-32) and first-half champion Vancouver (13-10, 35-26) after the Indians beat the Canadians in 11 innings Friday.
Four different Tri-City pitchers held the AquaSox off the scoreboard as they combined to strike out 13 Everett hitters.
Dust Devils starter Thomas Cosgrove (1-3) earned his first victory of the season. He fanned five and scattered three hits in five innings. Mark Zimmerman, Andres Munoz and Trevor Megill pitched four hitless innings of relief to preserve the win.
Randy Bell (0-2) allowed two first-inning runs and was saddled with the loss. Reliever Michael Suarez was sharp as he fanned seven allowed just one run on three hits and a walk in six innings. Fabian Roman struck out one hitter in the ninth as the three Everett pitchers combined for 11 strikeouts.
The Dust Devils scored twice with two outs in the top of the first. Kelvin Melean hit a triple off the wall in left field and scored on an error. Chris Mattison followed with a double down the left field and scored on a Tre Carter RBI single for a 2-0 lead.
Tri-City added another run in the second. Matthew Batten led off with a single and came home on a two-out error for a 3-0 lead.
Aaron Stroosma led off the third with a double for Everett, but the AquaSox stranded him at third.
The Dust Devils pushed it to 4-0 in the fourth. Luiz Almanzar led off with a walk and later scored on a run-scoring double play.
Everett’s only other opportunity came in the bottom of the fourth when Greifer Andrade and Onil Pena hit back-to-back one-out singles. But Troy Dixon followed by lining into a double play to end the inning. The AquaSox had just three baserunners the rest of the way.
Carter had two hits and drove in a run for the Dust Devils. Batten also had two hits and scored a run.
The four-game series concludes tonight at 7:05 p.m. Everett then heads to Vancouver for a brief three-game road trip before returning Wednesday for an eight-game homestand.
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