YAKIMA – The explosive Everett AquaSox offense might make it easy to overlook a good AquaSox pitching performance. That wasn’t the case for the AquaSox Wednesday night.
Everett’s offense erupted for five runs in the third inning and defeated the Yakima Bears 9-0. The AquaSox got a sharp pitching performance by Wednesday’s starter Paul Fagan.
Fagan stymied Yakima by steadily withstanding every threat the Bears posed. On multiple occasions, the 6-5 left-hander pitched himself out of trouble.
The third inning set the tone, both offensively and defensively.
Everett knocked the cover off the ball in the top half of the third inning. Shortstop Reed Eastley led off the inning with a single. Jeff Flaig then hit a single off the glove of the Yakima shortstop and Eastley raced to third. Eastley then scored on a Ron Prettyman single to deep right field to make the score 2-0.
With men on first and second and nobody out, J.B. Tucker laid down a sacrifice bunt that sent the runners to second and third. A Luis Valbuena single plated Flaig and Prettyman and all of a sudden the score was 4-0, but the AquaSox weren’t done with the inning.
Daniel Santin kept the inning going with a single to left field. With Valbuena on second and Santin on first, Michael Saunders drove a shot off the centerfield wall. His double scored the final two runs of the inning, making the score 6-0.
When the dust had cleared, Everett had scored five runs on six hits. Nine men had come to the plate for the AquaSox during the inning.
Fagan is just the third AquaSox starting pitcher to pitch into the eighth inning this season. He’d only allowed one base runner to reach as far as second base, didn’t give up any walks, struck out five and scattered six base hits over eight scoreless innings.
Eastley continued his red-hot hitting, batting 3-for-5 with a single, double and triple and two runs scored. Flaig matched Eastley’s 3-for-5 performance and drove in two.
The AquaSox are four games over .500 for the first time this season and have won eight of their past nine games.
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