When your luck runs out in baseball, it really runs out, and right now it seems like the Vancouver Canadians
have used up their 2006 quota of luck in a fairly major way. After a
road series that saw them lose three games to a team that scored 1 run,
3 runs and 2 runs to beat them, the C’s came home after a long bus ride
and were told they wouldn’t have to worry about taking batting practice
(hurray!), and oh yeah, their lead-off hitter and #3 (Todd Johnson and
chad Boyd) had been shipped off to Kane County.

Greeeat. That’s what you really need when your bats have run cold - two of your best hitters booted upstairs.

So with no BP on the day, you might have expected that the C’s would
take a few innings to hit. You’d be wrong, as the C’s finally started
swinging like they had against Yakima in the opening series of the
year, but that burst of lumber enthusiasm unfortunately coincided with
the pitching finally falling into a hole the size of Surrey.

Starting pitcher James ‘Doogie’ Heuser had started the season with
flair, rippping through two early season starts with great numbers, but
the Eugene Emeralds came out of the gate swinging hard, and Doogie
ended up getting beaten like a fat kid’s pinata before the Canadians
even had a chance to swing a bat.

Full report follows.


The San Diego Padres-affiliated Eugene Emeralds had crushed the
Spokane Indians last night by a score of 17-4, so they got off the bus
in the Nat Bailey Stadium parking lot clearly buoyed by the fact that,
unlike the Em’s of previous seasons, they don’t suck ass.

And it showed in their first inning, with Mike Epping taking a lead-off
walk, and David ‘Deep’ Freese and Craig ‘Hanging With Mr’ Cooper
kncoking out a pair of singles. Heuser, having let in one run, began to
entirely unravel as he plunked Chad ‘Felicity’ Huffman to load the
bases, before surrendering a three-run scoring double to Emeralds
catcher Luany Sanchez, and yet another run-scoring double to Willy
Crafort.

That’s five runs, for those keeping score, and the C’s were yet to even
stand at the plate. When they did, good things happened, albeit not as
many good things as happened to the Emeralds. Mike Klug drove in Don
Sutton to bring the lead back to 4 in the 2nd inning, which may have
given the C’s a sniff of a comeback… for a moment, anyway, since
Heuser was not yet done surrendering runs.

Like a long-time abused spouse, Doogie just kept coming back for more
punishment, getting smacked for two more runs in the 3rd (with the help
of a Mike Affronti throwing error), before Pat Currin came in to stop
the bleeding in the 4th. Sadly, Currin’s method of stopping the
bleeding tonight was to bleed to the point where there was no more
blood left to bleed, giving up another two runs to put Eugene ahead 9-1.

Newly arrived outfield draftee Matt Sulentic has struggled with the bat
for Vancouver since his professional debut, causing some boffins to
wonder whether he might not have been a bad pick. Wiser heads realize
that it’s tough to come out of high school using aluminum bats and
suddenly be playing pro ball with wood, and that naturally there’ll be
a week or two where the kid will have to adjust to things.

And that’s what has happened, with Sulentic hitting his stride tonight,
doubling in Jake ‘The Rake’ Smith and laying the groundwork for Alex
‘Exxon’ Valdez to sac fly in Sutton to make the score a much more
respectable (yet still far from respectable) 9-4 after 4 innings.

At the start of the season, I noted that Mike Affronti was defensive
dynamite, and that he puts on a clinic whenever he steps on to the
diamond. Since that day, he’s progressively slumped to the point where,
today, he gave up two throwing errors, both of which led to runs scored
by the other team. That’s what happened in the 6th, when Affronti threw
one away and not only let in a run, but also injured Don Sutton as he
stretched to reel it in.

Sutton managed to stay in the game to notch a single in the bottom of
the inning, when he was pinch-run for by Greg Dowling(!), who scored on
a groundout to make the score Eugene 10 - Vancouver 5.

The C’s, give them credit, were trying hard all the way, but nothing
they did proved unmatchable by Eugene - except the errors. In the 7th,
the C’s loaded the bases through Larry ‘Corny’ Cobb, Affronti and
Dowling, but Eugene rolled out their 25-yo fireballer, Justin Mattison
- one of the oldest players in the league - against a kid who was in
high school just a few months ago in Matt Sulentic.

Sulentic didn’t back down, and indeed worked the count well and drove
off a few foul tips before slamming a hard line drive that was ‘this
close’ to dropping fair - but didn’t. C’s strand 3, but their tail is
in the air - Eugene still leads by 5.

Sadly, another error, this one a fielding error by Sulentic in the 8th,
saw Eugene score another run, and led to a further run on an ensuing
double play. Matt Manship suddenly finds himself giving up runs that
shouldn’t have been runs, and the Em’s lead 12-5. At this point, the
National Canadian Painful Experience Administration contacted the
Vancouver scorer’s booth and notified him that this game had officially
been certified ‘painful to watch’.

How painful? consider the bottom of the 9th. Sure, the C’s are down by
7 and unlikely to make a successful comeback, but when the hot
bat-wielding Affronti took a walk to lead off the inning, and Jermaine
Mitchell was hit by a pitch with no outs, it looked as if something
might be brewing. A wild pitch by Mattison put two men in scoring
position, but the Eugene reliever hasn’t surrendered a hit this season
so far, and he wasn’t about to start now.

Smith: Fly-out.
Dowling: Ground-out (run scores).
Sulentic: Ground-out.

Game over. There’s your batting practice right there.

GAME NOTES:
* The loss of Toddric Johnson to Kane County is not unexpected, but the
pace with which it happened was. With Vancouver losing two outfielders
(Chad Boyd went earlier in the week), they’re looking very light in the
depth department outside the diamond, with just four capable players
for three spots. Will another draftee join the team soon, or will an
Arizona player get the kick upstairs?

* Carlos Gutierrez is hitting .313 with a .500 OBP so far in Arizona.
Granted, small sample size and all (he’s appeared in just five games),
but he’s far too old to keep him in ‘Zona for too long. If not him,
Carlos Morales is also an outfielder in Arizona, and he’s hitting .360
right now.

* Don Sutton is starting to warm up. his 1-2 with a walk, a double and
2 runs effort was the performance of the game for the C’s before he
staggered off the field nursing a potential leg strain. Pay no mind to
his .179 average - he’s been hitting his stride of late, and if he can
stay healthy, he may well find himself booted upstairs shortly, where
he would have been already if not for injury last season.

* Why did Johnson get sent to Kane County? Because 2004 Vancouver
Canadian Nick Blasi finally got booted up to Stockton. Blasi’s a solid
lead-off candidate who hit a rough spot with strikeouts last season, so
it’s good to see him getting his shot at the higher level, even if it
costs us one of our gun players.

* The last two years, Oakland has had plenty of draft picks, and picked
plenty of kids who really wanted to sign. This season, signing the kids
has been tough - a by-product of taking a lot of long shots on
undrafted injury cases who still have a season or two left of college
eligibility, and know they’ll draft higher with a full season under
their belt. By virtue of that, we’ve all but lost 7th round pick
Michael Leake, as well as 9th pick Danny Hamblin, and several others
look like maybe refusing their deals. 11th round pick Jason Fernandez
is in town and on the roster, and 10th round shortstop Christian
Vitters looks likely to sign, though he’s still some time away from
playing due to a thumb injury. All of which is my way of saying, this
is going to be a light year, Canadians fans. We’re going to need the
pitching to excel every time out if we’re going to have any chance of
success in 2006.

NOONER TODAY! See you at the ballpark.

Note:

	June 29, 2006
	Final 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E Eugene 5 0 2 2 0 1 0 2 0 12 12 1 Vancouver 0 1 0 3 0 1 0 0 1 6 9 4 box | log W: W. Leblanc (1-0, 0.00); L: J. Heuser (1-2, 5.54); SV: J. Mattison (3) HR: None.