EVERETT — Early on Wednesday night, it looked like the Everett AquaSox’s offense was coming to life.
However, the Spokane Indians brought Everett’s offense screeching to a halt.
Spokane’s pitchers rendered Everett’s bats ineffective over the last seven innings, and that allowed the Indians to come from behind and defeat the Sox 6-3 at Everett Memorial Stadium.
Brett Nicholas and Edwin Garcia each homered for Spokane, which took the first game of the five-game series. But it was the Indians’ pitchers who made the biggest difference. After Spokane fell behind 3-0 in the second inning, the Indians held the Sox to just two singles the rest of the way.
Spokane reliever Francisco Mendoza was particularly effective, throwing 32/3 scoreless innings to pick up the win and improve to 2-1. Kyle Hendricks tossed a perfect ninth to earn the save, his first.
“Their starter (David Perez) settled down a little bit and their reliever came in and threw well right away,” Everett manager Scott Steinmann said. “(Mendoza) had a (7.94) ERA, but he really looked good tonight. He was on his stuff tonight.”
The Indians improved to 14-12 and pulled into a tie for first place with Boise in the Northwest League’s East Division.
James Wood homered to pace the Sox (10-16), who continue to struggle at home. Everett is now 2-8 at Everett Memorial Stadium.
Wednesday’s game started a half-hour late because of a rainstorm that drenched the field earlier in the evening.
Everett starting pitcher Stephen Landazuri was electric for most of his outing. The 19-year-old right-hander was lights out over five scoreless innings, allowing just one single and striking out nine as he had the Indians constantly check swinging for strike three. At one point, Landazuri struck out five straight.
However, Landazuri ran into trouble in the sixth and didn’t make it out of the frame. He ended up allowing three runs on four hits and two walks through 52/3 innings.
Wednesday was the first time this season Landazuri pitched into the sixth inning, and Steinmann acknowledged Landazuri may have tired a bit. Nevertheless, Steinmann said it was Landazuri’s best performance of the season.
“That first five innings, he really dominated early on,” Steinmann said. “We want him to take that confidence gained from the first five innings, then learn from the sixth.”
Landazuri departed the game with the score tied 3-3, and reliever Jordan Pries managed to pitch out of the remainder of the jam in the sixth to keep the score tied. However, Pries couldn’t hold the Indians at bay after that.
With one out in the seventh, Garcia turned on a 1-2 pitch and yanked a homer that just cleared the wall down the left-field line. Garcia’s homer was his first of the season.
The Indians then padded their lead in the eighth. Nicholas and Trever Adams led off the inning by putting back-to-back doubles off the wall to score one run. Adams then scored from third when Sox third baseman Ramon Morla threw away Jorge Alfaro’s two-out grounder, making it 6-3.
Everett rallied in the bottom of the second to take an early lead. Wood opened the scoring by launching a two-run homer way out to dead center field. Nathan Melendres later added an RBI single to center, giving the Sox a 3-0 lead.
Spokane finally got to Landazuri in the sixth. With two out Zachary Cone ripped an RBI double off the left-field wall. Then Nicholas followed by blasting a two-run shot to right, making it 3-3.
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