EVERETT – All good things must come to an end.
The Everett AquaSox were victims of that truism Saturday night.
Everett’s string of consecutive quality outings from its starting pitchers ended, and the AquaSox were pummeled by the Salem-Keizer Volcanoes 7-1 at Everett Memorial Stadium in the rubber game of their three-game series.
Everett opened the season with 12 straight strong appearances from its starting pitchers, which was the primary reason the AquaSox won nine of their first 12 games.
However, that string came crashing to a halt Saturday as the Volcanoes lit up Everett starter Natividad Dilone.
“You can’t expect to get quality starts every time out, but you strive for much better than (what the AquaSox received Saturday),” Everett manager Dave Myers said. “It’s not all right to say, ‘Oh well, it’s OK.’ That’s the mentality of a losing ballclub, and that’s not the mentality we have.”
Will Thompson, Matt Weston and Adam Witter all homered for Salem-Keizer, which took two of three in the series between the teams with the best records in the Northwest League. The Volcanoes (11-2) now hold a two-game advantage over the AquaSox for first place in the West Division.
“It was definitely important (to take two of three),” said Salem-Keizer starting pitcher John Odom, who threw six scoreless innings. “We wanted to make a statement. At the start of the season was saw how fast they started and we wanted to see how good they were. I tip my hat to them, they can hit the ball and they have good pitchers.”
There wasn’t much drama in this one. Dilone was overpowering in his first two starts and had yet to surrender a run. But Saturday he had no command of his pitches and was consistently working from behind in the count. Salem-Keizer capitalized to the tune of five runs and seven hits in two innings.
Dilone’s two-innings stint was by far the shortest of the season by an Everett starter. He fell to 0-1. So what was different between Dilone’s first two starts and his third?
“Other than that he didn’t throw strikes?” Myers asked. “That probably sums it up.”
Odom was every bit as good as Dilone was bad. The right-hander gave up five hits and no walks in his six innings to improve to 2-1. He struck out five, all five looking at breaking balls.
“I was able to locate my fastball and keep it down in the zone,” Odom said. “These guys are free swingers, so if you leave it up they’re going to pound it. Then I was starting my breaking ball in the zone and it was breaking nice. That worked to my advantage.”
Buster Lussier pitched the final three innings to earn the save, his first of the season.
Gavin Dickey was the only Everett player with more than one hit. He went 2-for-4 and scored the AquaSox’s lone run.
Dilone gave up his first run of the season in the top of the first inning. Emmanuel Burriss led off the game with high-hop infield single to short, advanced to third when Dilone threw away a pickoff attempt, and scored on Witter’s two-out single past diving first baseman Joe White, staking the Volcanoes to an early 1-0 lead.
The Volcanoes then erupted for four runs in the second. The rally began ominously when with two out, Everett right fielder Kuo Hui Lo dived for Mike McBryde’s line drive and missed, giving McBryde a triple. That opened the floodgates as Burriss walked, Bobby Felmy bounced an RBI single over White’s head, and Thompson launched a three-run shot onto the homer porch in right.
Rollie Gibson relieved Dilone to start the third and was greeted by Weston, who blasted a full-count pitch over the fence in center to make it 6-0.
The Volcanoes found the homer porch again in the sixth, Witter sending a high shot onto the grass from a Juan Colon pitch to increase the lead to 7-0.
The Sox avoided a shutout in the ninth. Dickey smacked a one-out single to right and Manelik Pimentel followed with a double off the right-field wall. When the throw back to the infield got away, Dickey scored standing up to get Everett on the board.
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