EVERETT – Perhaps the Everett AquaSox were due. Or maybe they just didn’t react well to the difficult playing conditions. But for whatever reason, everything that could go wrong did go wrong for the AquaSox on Tuesday night.
The AquaSox had a complete meltdown and were blown out 12-3 by the Vancouver Canadians in the final game of their three-game Northwest League series.
A crowd of 767 at Everett Memorial Stadium braved the rain and cold to witness the AquaSox’s four-game winning streak come crashing to an end.
Everett fell to 13-6, Vancouver improved to 7-12.
“They took it to us, start to finish,” Everett manager Pedro Grifol said. “I wouldn’t say our guys weren’t prepared, but they were sluggish early. The Canadians’ were ready to play and took it to us in every single way.”
Everett’s batters managed just five hits and struck out eight times against Vancouver’s soft-tossing starter Mike McGirr. AquaSox starting pitcher Ruben Flores was unable to get out of the second inning. And the Everett defense fell apart to the tune of six errors.
To top it off, infielder Asdrubal Cabrera, leading the team in batting average, had to be removed from the game in the fourth inning after apparently reaggravating a back injury.
Meanwhile, McGirr was making the most potent offense in the league seem tame. Using his offspeed pitches to perfection, McGirr pitched seven scoreless innings, giving up just two hits and walking none to improve his record to 3-0.
“He attacks the strike zone,” Grifol said of McGirr. “He doesn’t care about the weather or about the field elements or about whether the park is big or small. He attacked the zone and took it right to us.”
McGirr’s performance helped the Canadians erase the memories of back-to-back losses in the bottom of the ninth to Everett the previous two nights.
“It was really nice because we lost four straight to this team until today,” McGirr said. “It was nice to finally win one. They’re a good club with good sticks and good pitching, but our guys were ready to win one. I was able to put up a couple of zeroes and it seemed like we had 10 runs right off the bat, so I just coasted from there.”
In contrast, Flores had a disastrous outing. Flores, third in the league with a 1.59 in ERA going into the game, never looked comfortable in the wet and chilly conditions. He gave up eight runs on eight hits and two walks in 12/3 innings and took the loss to fall to 1-2.
Vancouver wasted little time taking the lead, scoring twice in the top of the first. Nick Blasi led off with a single and advanced to third when the ball hopped over right fielder Elvis Cruz’s head. Blasi scored on Ryan Ruiz’s single to left, then Ruiz raced home on Thomas Everidge’s double down the right-field line, making it 2-0.
The wheels then fell off completely for the AquaSox in the second as five hits, two walks and two errors resulted in six Vancouver runs. Even when Everett did something right, catching Javier Herrera off first base after his RBI single made it 3-0, it backfired as in the ensuing rundown, Chalon Tietje broke for the plate and the throw home was late, allowing the run to score and Herrera to waltz into second.
Herrera made it 9-0 in the third, blasting a solo homer to center. It was the 19-year-old from Venezuela’s fifth homer in nine games against Everett this season and his third of the series.
The Canadians stretched the lead to double digits in the eighth on Danny Putnam’s solo home run to right.
Everett finally got on the board in the bottom of the eighth against reliever Zachery Basch. Cruz’s sacrifice fly brought home Mike Wilson, then Luis Soto’s grounder bounced off second baseman Ruiz’s glove for a single, scoring Brian Schweiger and Trevor Heid to make it 10-3.
But two more Everett errors in the ninth led to two more Vancouver runs, creating the final margin.
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