EVERETT – It all looked doomed for the Everett AquaSox. A pair of crushing blows seemed to leave Everett down and out late in the game, and the AquaSox’s winning streak was all but over.
That’s when Everett erupted for the type of inning teams only dream about.
Everett scored twelve runs in the bottom of the seventh inning, turning a four-run deficit into a eight-run lead, and the AquaSox survived a furious Yakima rally to defeat the Bears 16-15 Tuesday night in a wild Northwest League game.
“I don’t know where that inning came from,” said Everett first baseman Jeff Flaig, who had two hits, including the game-tying three-run homer, in the inning. “I’ve never been a part of an inning where we were down four and came back to score 12. It was quite exciting.”
The mammoth rally, before the remnants of an Everett Memorial Stadium crowd of 1,264, increased Everett’s winning streak to five. The AquaSox (32-22) remained four games behind West Division-leading Vancouver, which beat Spokane 13-2. Yakima dropped to 22-32.
“It’s not often you have the type of inning where everyone is hitting the ball hard,” said Everett designated hitter Reed Eastley, who also had two hits during the rally. “It was good timing, that’s for sure. It just goes to show that when you put it together, anything can happen.”
When Jaen Centeno slugged a grand slam in the sixth and Trey Hendricks followed with a three-run shot in the seventh to give Yakima an 8-4 lead, it looked as though the wind was gone from the AquaSox sails.
How wrong that turned out to be.
Everett sent 15 men to the plate in the bottom of the seventh and battered the ball all over the park. The barrage included three singles, two doubles, a triple and three home runs – Flaig’s game-tying three-run homer, a go-ahead two-run shot by Luis Valbuena and a rally-completing two run blast by J.B. Tucker. Flaig, Eastly and Rob Hudson all had two hits and scored twice in the inning.
“It think it all started off when we got the first two guys on base with no one out,” Flaig said. “That got us pumped up. We weren’t going to let them score those runs without doing something about it. Then we did everything right.”
Yakima made a game of it, scoring three in the eighth and four in the ninth to force Everett to sweat it out. But Steve Kahn came in and got Josh Ford out on a comebacker to end the game and earn his eighth save in eight chances.
“I was a little bit nervous at the end,” Eastley said. “But we all have confidence in our bullpen and we knew we had Kahn if anything went wrong.”
Hudson got Everett’s big inning started with a leadoff triple against reliever Matt Fowles, who came into the game with an ERA of 0.92. Singles by Ronnie Prettyman and Eastley resulted in one run, and Flaig followed with a line shot to left, his fifth of the season, to tie it at 8-8.
After one out the rally restarted when Casey Craig reached on an error. Valbuena followed by homering to right, his 10th of the season and fourth in three games, to give Everett the lead.
Back-to-back walks to Mike Saunders and Bryan Sabatella sent Fowles to the showers and produced Matt Krohe. Doubles by Hudson and Eastley resulted in three runs, Flaig had an RBI single, and Tucker blasted a moonshot to center, his eighth of the season, and Everett led 16-8.
Prettyman also homered for Everett, his third of the season. Flaig finished 3-for-5 with four RBI, Eastley and Hudson also had three hits, and Tucker finished with three RBI.
Brandon Burgess added his third homer of the season – a three-run shot in the ninth that brought the Bears within one – and both he and Hendricks finished 3-for-5 with four RBI.
Reliever Justin Thomas (3-3) got the win, despite giving up four runs in 11/3 innings, including Hendricks’ homer. Starter Nick Allen worked five innings, giving up three runs on five hits and two walks, striking out one.
Fowles took the loss, falling to 2-1.
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