The Vancouver Canadians have been heating up these last few days, but baseball is a game in which every team expects to win a third of the games they play, and lose a third of the games they play. The third in between – well, that’s where championships are decided.

Unfortunately for the C’s, if the championship is to be decided to games like tonight’s, we might have to get used to coming second. 7 runs in two innings put the Canadians in a strong position by the end of the 4th inning, but pitching lapses, tepid hitting, and the nasty booming bat of Elvin Puello (pictured right) shoved this game into the loss column, despite going in to extra innings.

Not a huge game report tonight – after all, you can watch the game in it’s entirety by going to BoiseHawks.net and clicking the Hawks-Vision button. Long story short, the C’s came out of the gate booming, but then allowed the Hawks to boom right back.

With Jimmy Shull on the mound, the Canadians would have had reason to be confident coming in to tonight’s game. Shull throws such nasty stuff that the catcher’s often request flame retardant suits to catch for him, so the chance for Shull to come hard at the Boise line-up was one he would have been looking forward to.

Alas, Shull was not on his A-game today, surrendering a run on a single, steal and two ground-outs in the 1st, and another on a Mark Reed home run in the 2nd.

That said, if you’ve read this blog for longer than the time it takes to make French Toast, you know that any time an opponent scores on Vancouver, they score right back immediately, so it was inevitable that the Canadians would get nasty by the 3rd inning.

And they did just that, with a Zeke Parraz walk, a Justin Sellers single to right, and a ‘Michiro’ Massaro bunt-to-base special that scored a run without loss of an out. Jeff ‘The Beak’ Bieker did the teamer thing next up, sac bunting to get both runners into scoring position, so that they could take advantage of a wild pitch to score a run.

A Travis Buck fielder’s choice scored another soon after, while a Jeff Baisley double and a Kyle Edwards throwing error allowed another two runs to score. When the inning was over, the Canadians led the Hawks by a score of 5-2.

And then came the 4th inning, where the pitcher slaughter continued for Boise. Zeke Parraz again started the fun, singling to get on the bag from the lead-off spot, and so when Jeff Bieker turned the crank and sent the ball yard over the center field wall, the Canadians were in a commanding 7-2 position that looked ahrder to lose than win.

For a while, anyway. Thing was, starting pitcher Jimmy Shull was getting a little easy to tag, and so when the bad guys registered 3 runs in the bottom of the 4th, all from singles, V-Town’s stranglehold on the game had officially come into question.

In the 5th for Vancouver, Shawn Callahan got on base via throwing error from 2nd, and the ever-present Ezekiel Parraz drew a walk to make the threat real. Pity then that Steve ‘Squeaky’ Kleen, Jose ‘Can You See’ Garcia, and Justin ‘Spanky’ Sellers all struck out swinging to close the inning out without a runner scoring.

Jason ‘Death’ Ray came in for the 6th to relieve Shull and keep a lid on any comebacks… but two doubles, a single, and a steal were enough to see him giving up two runs and the lead – going in to the 7th, the scores were level at 7-7.

A pitcher change in the 8th, with Ron ‘Mayday’ Madej (right) coming in to steady the ship, proved the first real glimpse of hardcore pitching that the C’s have seen in days – with Mayday striking out the side swinging, and an inherited runner on 1st not moving an inch in the process.

Madej continued this dominance in the 9th when, after giving up an error and a sac bunt to see a runner on 3rd with one out, the pitcher walked the threatening Chris Gaskin, struck out Kyle Reynolds, and lured Jesus Valdez into hitting the ball right down Massaro’s throat at center.

Vancouver just couldn’t get anything going with the bat in the 10th inning, but rbought out the always reliable Stephen ‘Bad News’ Bryant to shut down the Hawks.

First batter Bryant would face – Elvin Puello.

Home run to right. Game over, 8-7 Boise.

July 31, 2005
	Final 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 R H E Vancouver 0 0 5 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 7 8 1 Boise 1 1 0 3 0 2 0 0 0 1 8 13 2 wrap | box | log W: J. Hunton (1-2, 3.38); L: S. Bryant (1-1, 1.29); HR: VAN: J. Bieker (1). BOI: E. Puello (3), M. Reed (3).

Game notes:
* Worth noting with the bat tonight were a handful of names – first and foremost, Travis Buck. Missing in action for the last few games, T-Buck resurfaced tonight with a 2-5 effort, with a double, run scored, and an RBI. It wasn’t a game-winning outing by any stretch, but the guy is hitting .361 right now, so perhaps we expect more from him than others.

* Also solid was Zeke Parraz, who is rapidly becoming one of our favorite C’s players. Deft with the bat, great plate patience, quick around the bases and fearless, Parraz gives the Canadians a rearguard offense that has kept them in games of late. Tonight: 1-3 with 2 walks and 2 runs scored.

* Good to see The Beak, Jeff Bieker, given a little time at the top of the order. Beak responded with a nice 2-run home run shot, but just didn’t have it in him for more than a 1-3 night with a walk and a run scored otherwise.

* With the ball, everyone was overshadowed by Mayday Madej. Throwing 2 innings of relief with 4K’s and a walk, with no hits and no runs scored, he was the pick of the litter.

* Not so good was Jimmy Shull, who is starting to look like he’s in a slump. Of course, every player goes through at least one slump per year, so the mark of his game will be in how quickly he pushes through it. Tonight’s line: 5 innings pitched, 8 hits, 5 earned runs, 3 K’s. He now has an ERA of 3.86, which is still healthy, but not as scary as it was a week ago.

No game tomorrow as the C’s travel back to home base on a bus. Tuesday at 7PM will see the Canadians return to the fray at Nat Bailey Stadium, where they’ll take on the Spokane Indians. Joe Newby is likely to start the outing. BE THERE!