EVERETT — The man just refuses to make an out.
Since beginning his professional career Friday, Dennis Raben has spent virtually every waking moment either putting dents in the outield wall at Everett Memorial Stadium or chugging his way around the bases.
Monday night he added to what is a quickly growing — and perhaps short-lived — legend as an Everett AquaSox player.
Raben sparked the decisive rally, driving in the go-ahead run in the bottom of the seventh inning, and the AquaSox defeated the Yakima Bears 5-3.
After a two-for-two, two-walk performance Monday, Raben has come to the plate 17 times for Everett. He reached base 15 times. His 10-for-12 batting performance includes six extra-base hits.
“I try not to,” Raben answered when jokingly asked if he intends on ever making an out. “Every time you go up to the plate you try to get on base, and I’ve been getting on base a lot. Hopefully I’ll just keep it going.”
And with just about all of the Seattle Mariners minor-league brain trust — vice president of player personnel Benny Looper, vice president of scouting Bob Fontaine and director of player development Greg Hunter — in attendance Monday, and with the Mariners notorious for pushing their prospects forward quickly, it seems possible Raben will be promoted before the Sox return from their upcoming five-game series at Tri-City.
“He knows he’s going to do some damage,” Everett manager Jose Moreno said about Raben’s current run. “Right now he’s seeing the ball very well.”
Raben wasn’t the only Everett batter who put his hitting prowess on display Monday. Nate Tenbrink also went 2-for-2 with two walks, slugging his team-leading fourth homer of the season as the Sox (9-12) took the five-game series 3-2. It was the first series win for Everett this season.
The Sox also got a solid pitching performance from starter Brett Lorin and relievers Robbie Dominguez and Javier Martinez, who held the Bears to five hits and struck out 11.
But once again it was Raben who stole the spotlight. Coming to the plate in the bottom of the seventh with two runners on, one out and the score tied 2-2, it seemed inevitable he would drive in the tiebreaking run. He did so when he took a Brett Moorhouse slider the opposite way for a double off the left-field wall, scoring Ryan Royster from second.
“As a competitor and as a hitter you always want to be in a situation like that where it’s a tie ball game late in the game,” said Raben, who was confident he would break the tie. “I got a good pitch to hit, put a good swing on it and got the result.”
The Sox went on to score three runs in the inning, Travis Howell and Manelik Pimentel each adding RBI singles, rendering a brief Yakima rally in the ninth meaningless.
And after losing the first four series of the season by a single game, it was a sweet feeling for the Sox to finally win a series.
“I’m very happy about that,” Moreno said. “The kids deserve it. They had a tough time at the beginning of the season, but right now they know they can win some games if they put everything together, and it seems to be coming out right now.”
Roman Castillo, backed by a boisterous group of supporters brandishing the flag of his native Panama, went 3-for-4 with a homer to lead Yakima (9-12).
Everett prevailed despite, perhaps, the ugliest sequence in AquaSox history.
In the top of the third with Everett leading 1-0, Yakima’s Collin Cowgill was unable to check his swing on a Lorin inside fastball for strike three. The pitch got past catcher Howell, but Howell had plenty of time to throw to first because Cowgill hesitated before breaking from the batter’s box.
However, Howell’s throw to first sailed way over first baseman Manelik Pimentel’s head, allowing David Cooper to trot home from second. Raben, backing up the play in right field, whiffed as the ball rolled all the way into the corner. Cowgill was able to score uncontested on what should have been the inning’s first out.
But Tenbrink’s solo homer in the fifth and Raben’s heroics in the seventh overcame the third-inning follies.
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