EVERETT – It was all set up for the Everett AquaSox. The Frogs had fought themselves back against the Yakima Bears and appeared poised for a comeback.
Then disaster struck.
Just as Everett got back into the game, Yakima put a six-spot on the board in the seventh inning to blow the game wide open, and the AquaSox fell 14-4 Thursday night in Northwest League baseball game.
An Everett Memorial Stadium crowd of 1,911 watched as the AquaSox bullpen suffered a meltdown of Chernobyl-like proportions. Everett’s final three relievers combined to give up eight runs in three innings.
The AquaSox fell to 16-11. Yakima improved to 11-16.
“We didn’t execute,” Everett manager Pedro Grifol said. “They did a good job of hitting, they hit some big home runs when it counted. But we didn’t execute when we needed to and we didn’t pitch when we needed to.”
Everett had just scored three runs in the bottom of the sixth to cut the lead to 6-4. But a combination of errors, walks and timely hits in the top of the seventh spelled doom for the AquaSox.
The harbinger was when leadoff batter Erik Schindwolf’s fly to right was dropped by Mike Wilson, who was distracted by the wall, for a two-base error. Reliever Kenny Falconer walked the next two batters to load the bases with no outs and bring Brandon Perry in from the bullpen.
Perry was greeted by an RBI single by Carlos Gonzalez. Then when Chris Carter grounded to first, Marshall Hubbard’s throw home was in the dirt, allowing Mark Reynolds to score. Trey Hendricks added an RBI single, Daniel Pohlman hit a sacrifice fly, Brandon Simon sliced a two-run double to left, and suddenly it was 12-4.
Yakima continued to pound away in the final two innings against Vance Hall. Reynolds hit a solo homer to right-center in the eighth, and Schindewolf hit a sacrifice fly in the ninth as the lead was stretched to double digits.
” (The AquaSox relievers) were not at their best today, obviously,” Grifol said. “They didn’t attack the strike zone. But tomorrow’s another day and we’ll address it.”
Pohlman finished with four RBI and Carter and Simon each went 3-for-5 to lead Yakima’s offense.
Johnson went 3-for-5 to pace Everett.
Everett starting pitcher Kendall Bergdall went 41/3 innings and took the loss to fall to 2-1. He gave up six runs on eight hits and three walks, striking out six.
Yakima starter A.J. Shappi earned the win, giving up one run on seven hits in five innings and striking out five. He improved to 1-1.
Everett got itself back in the game in the sixth. Trailing 6-1, Hubbard led off with a gift single when his routine grounder bounced off the first-base bag and away from Hendricks at first. Hubbard took second on a passed ball and scored when Casey Craig’s grounder went under the glove of diving second baseman Schindewolf for a single. Trevor Heid and Brent Johnson later added RBI singles to center, cutting the lead to 6-4.
Yakima scored first in the second when Pohlman’s sacrifice fly brought home Carter to make it 1-0. The Bears added two more in the fourth on Pohlman’s two-run drive over the right-center wall. Pohlman’s first homer of the year made it 3-0.
The Bears then took control in the fifth. Schindewolf led off with a homer to center, his second of the season. Bergdall then walked Reynolds and Orlando Mercado and uncorked two wild pitches to score Reynolds. Mercado later scored on a Carter single to increase the lead to 6-0.
The AquaSox finally got on the board in the bottom of the fifth; singles by Omar Falcon, Wilson, Johnson and Asdrubal Cabrera resulted in one run and loaded the bases with two out. Brandon Green then went to a 3-0 count, but Shappi came back to strike Green out looking on a pitch Green argued was outside, leaving the score at 6-1.
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