EVERETT — Luis Suisbel spun around and slammed his bat to the ground.
With the Everett AquaSox trailing 3-0 in the bottom of the fourth inning against the Vancouver Canadians at Funko Field on Saturday, Suisbel stepped up to the plate with two outs and immediately flew out to center field on the first pitch to end the inning.
The frustration was palpable.
After the AquaSox generated just two hits in a 9-2 loss on Friday, the bats continued to struggle with only three hits in Saturday’s 3-0 loss to the Canadians. Everett has lost four in a row, and is 3-11 in the second half after clinching the first-half title on June 19.
“We’re going through this slump, but we’re going to be fine,” said AquaSox bench coach Hecmart Nieves, who is serving as acting manager with Zach Vincej out of town. “It’s just like, keep pushing the guys to trust what they’re doing, even though we haven’t had the results that we wanted, it’s just a matter of keep pushing them.”
Nieves believes the players are swinging at the correct pitches, and he likes that they’re putting the ball in play with two strikes, but even the good swings had bad results on Saturday. Credit is due in part to Vancouver making stellar defensive plays. By corralling a tough grounder in the infield, making a sliding catch in the outfield or relaying to beat a runner home, the Canadians were all over the field on Saturday.
Everett, for its part, also came up with a few defensive highlights to keep the game in reach. The only thing they couldn’t catch was a break.
“Man, once the cleats get off, it’s a new day,” AquaSox outfielder Curtis Washington Jr. said. “New day tomorrow. Obviously, (today) didn’t go as planned, but there’s no struggle. There’s no struggle. It’s baseball.”
Perhaps no struggle in the grand scheme of life, but pick any other word in the thesaurus and it would aptly describe what the AquaSox experienced facing Vancouver starter Khal Stephen.
The Toronto Blue Jays’ 2024 second-rounder was dominant, allowing just two hits and one walk while striking out six across six innings. He lowered his ERA to 1.52 with the shutout effort. Meanwhile, Everett starter Jurrangelo Cijntje — a college teammate of Stephan at Mississippi State — notched five strikeouts in 4.2 innings, but allowed three earned runs on seven hits and three walks.
Offensively, the Canadians got on the board right away when MLB’s No. 50 prospect Arjun Nimmala hit an RBI-double to center field in the top of the first inning. Cutter Coffey extended it to 3-0 with a two-run homer to left-center in the third.
Vancouver threatened in the fifth by loading the bases with one out. Everett outfielder Anthony Donofrio prevented a sacrifice fly by forcing the runners to hold with a strong throw to home plate, and Allan Saathoff took over on the bump to try and strand the runners.
Saathoff got ahead 0-2 in the count before forcing a groundout to end the inning. After Saathoff returned for a clean sixth inning, Ben Hernandez and Hunter Cranton kept the Vancouver bats at bay down the stretch. Overall, the bullpen combined to allow just two hits and one walk while striking out four over the final 4.1 innings, doing its part as the offense struggled— er, floundered.
“Our main goal is to go out there and get zeroes,” Saathoff said. “Get ahead of guys, attack and just, I know that we have a really good offense. We have a lot of really good players, and the best thing we can do is get quick outs there and just trust that they’re going to pick it up.”
With their pitching staff behind them, the AquaSox started to put their bats on the ball, but to no avail. Washington Jr. ripped a grounder down the third base line in the sixth, but Vancouver’s Sean Keys secured it in foul territory and managed to gun him down to turn a sure-fire infield single into a groundout.
“Once I hit it, I thought it was foul, so I really didn’t get out of the box,” Washington Jr. said. “But once I realized it was fair … if we got out of the box, it would’ve been safe, but like I said, it’s just baseball.”
Even Everett’s best scoring opportunity was wiped out by the Canadians defense. After a Charlie Pagliarini walk with two outs in the sixth inning, Brandon Eike ripped a double off the center field wall. Pagliarini was waved home, but the defense relayed to catch him at home and end the inning.
“There’s two outs, he’s (Pagliarini) going to be running on the swing,” said Nieves, who was positioned as the third base coach. “The center fielder did an unbelievable job, and the shortstop just (made) a perfect throw at the plate. That’s the only throw that gets him, and they did it perfectly.
“So I’m just trying to get that run there. I will do that 100 percent of the time with two outs.”
The AquaSox got a runner to third in both the eighth and ninth innings, but collectively went 0-for-3 with a walk and two strikeouts. Designated hitter Colin Davis screamed and swung his bat down after whiffing on a pitch up in the zone to end the game.
The frustration is palpable.
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