NOTES FROM THE NAT: Vancouver Canadians news

Cobb, Sulentic, Dowling - those are the three position players capable of turning around any game this season’s Vancouver Canadians
play, and it’s no surprise that, once again, those three were the only
ones showing real life out there tonight at The Nat as the Tri-City
Dust Devils beat the living crap out of Inoel Deaza and Derrick Gordon
to toast the good guys 8-1.

Deaza has been strong for most of the 2006 NWL season, but of late has
started looking like he’s either tired, distracted, or injured, and
tonight he got absolutely caned by the resurgent Devs, getting hit for
two home runs in a ballpark where any pitcher worth his salt shouldn’t
give up one, and setting the C’s up for an almost certain loss.

And just to make sure of the result, Derrick "The Commissioner" Gordon
came in to relieve and gave up 4 earned runs in 0.1 innings pitched.

But there was some good in this mess of a meltdown - Matt "The
Battleship" Manship came in to clean up Gordon’s mess, throwing 3.2
innings of 3-hit, 4-strike, no-run ball, and Sugar Shane Presutti
followed that with a clean two innings of mop-up ball, striking out 4
and walking none, to give C’s fans at least some reason not to hang
themselves.

Larry Cobb was also solid in the lead-off role, going 1-2 with two
walks - exactly what you’d want from a guy who sets the table for the
meat of the order. Sulentic went 1-3 with a run, Dowling went 1-3 with
a double, a walk, and an RBI, and Valdez and Hernandez eached showed up
with a base hit out of 3 ABs.

In the top of the 7th, Greg Dowling missed a catch at first base to
allow Razor Ramon Rodriguez on to base. Dowling’s been working on his
defense, and clearly wasn’t impressed with himself, despite the fact
that the C’s were already blown out, so when the next hitter smashed
the ball at Dowling, he was not only ready for to take a screamer of a
catch, he pounced on it like a panther to get the unassisted double
play, doubling up Rodriguez at 1st. From this moment on, Howling Greg
Dowling will be known as Prowling Greg Dowling. Dude’s an assassin
right now.

Rosie Rosendo started for a second straight game, giving Jake Smith a
much-needed rest - let’s see if The Rake can come back tomorrow with a
little steel in his garden tools.

Come on, Jacob. We need you steering this ship.

Note:

	July 31, 2006
	Final 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E Tri-City 2 1 1 4 0 0 0 0 0 8 13 2 Vancouver 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 5 2 box | log W: A. Rodriguez (3-1, 2.34); L: I. Deaza (3-3, 3.91) HR: TRI: M. Repec (3), J. Kindel (1).

As Inoel Deaza serves up softballs to the Tri-City Dust Devils, I
figured maybe it’s time for a quick news wrap-up, so that, just maybe,
C’s fans have something to talk about that doesn’t start with "not
again."

JERMAINE MITCHELL INJURY UPDATE:
Don’t expect to see the J-Train in red white and blue any time soon -
the guy is wearing a boot on his foot, courtesy of the plunking he took
off Spokane Indians pitcher, Brennan Garr. We all knew the Injuns would
start hitting batters once they were behind - it’s tradition for the
Rangers affiliate, after all - but what wasn’t expected was that
Mitchell, who was walking around freely on the foot after the game,
would start feeling it days later and show enough damage on his MRI to
warrant a couple of weeks out of the game.

I’m told he’ll be wearing the cast until somewhere around this time
next week, and you’d have to expect he’ll have a week or so once it
comes off to make sure he’s healthy before he starts again, so though
he’s not done for the season, his season is pretty badly damaged.
Thanks Spokane, you bastards.

JASON WINDSOR BACK DOWN TO AAA:
2004 Vancouver Canadians
pitcher Jason Windsor pitched reasonably well in his major league
debut, but got pretty much schooled by the Boston Red Sox in his second
start last week. A series of days off for the A’s in the weeks ahead
meant the team had little need for a #5 starter, so Windsor was kicked
back downstairs to Sacramento for a little more polish.

More after the fold:
(more…)

In a famous scene from the film Pulp Fiction, Marsellus Wallace says, "The night
of the fight, you may feel a slight sting. That’s pride f__king with
you. F__k pride. Pride only hurts, it never helps."

Needless to say, Marsellus Wallace didn’t know what the f__k he was
talking about, because pride is the thing that is keeping this ballclub
fueled, afloat, and in the running for a pennant, and there were
boatloads of the stuff on display on Sunday.

At a certain stage of every season, at every ball club, a player will
look across a crowded locker room at another player, eyes will meet,
and nods will be exchanged.

No, this isn’t the prelude to a wedgie, it’s called ‘the turning
point’. It’s a moment where one player decides, "enough is enough," and
another player finds himself thinking the exact same way, and between
them, the snowball starts to roll - even if just an inch or so - slowly
picking up more players as it rolls until the entire team is geared
towards achieving the impossible.

As the players left the ballpark on Saturday night after a 1-0 loss to
a team they should destroy in their sleep, the mood was one where you
felt, if there was to be a turning point this season, it was going to
be here. Yesterdays game was a case of that snowball picking up steam,
as a couple more players hopped aboard the "we’re not going out like
that" bandwagon, and tonight I expect more of the same.
(more…)

It would be tough to call tonight’s loss by the Vancouver Canadians
a result of a ‘bullpen meltdown’, because you can hardly blame a
bullpen for giving up a single run in an entire ballgame, even if that
single run brought about a loss.

In most games, you expect the other team to score at least a few runs,
and you hope your offense can keep you out in front by scoring more,
but when the hitters go for half a game without even getting a man on
base, the pitching staff has every right to wash their hands of blame
and say, "We did our bit."

The Vancouver Canadians right now are hurting when the bat is in hand,
and they have been for several days now, but tonight’s effort came with
something that last night’s outing didn’t; and that’s desire.

Sure, the C’s lost to a team that only managed five hits (the C’s
managed four), but you can’t always look at a box score line and assume
the team that lost was hopeless. Case in point, tonight the pitching
staff of the Tri-City Dust Devils featured ERAs of 3.79, 1.17, 1.63,
1.80, and 3.60. Now, in anyone’s language, that’s hardcore nasty, and
it’s no shocker that the Vacuum Cleaners would roll out their best
staff all on the same night, especially when the game was tied 0-0
going all the way into the 7th inning.

Last night I sat in the front row and looked guys in the eye and could
see their minds were elsewhere, and it pissed me off. Tonight, I looked
those same guys in the eye and saw determination, drive, desperation,
and even dread when the Dust-Devils finally broke the deadlock.
Tonight’s Canadians wanted to win, and they wanted to win BAD.
(more…)

It would be tough to call tonight’s loss by the Vancouver Canadians
a result of a ‘bullpen meltdown’, because you can hardly blame a
bullpen for giving up a single run in an entire ballgame, even if that
single run brought about a loss.

In most games, you expect the other team to score at least a few runs,
and you hope your offense can keep you out in front by scoring more,
but when the hitters go for half a game without even getting a man on
base, the pitching staff has every right to wash their hands of blame
and say, "We did our bit."

The Vancouver Canadians right now are hurting when the bat is in hand,
and they have been for several days now, but tonight’s effort came with
something that last night’s outing didn’t; and that’s desire.

Sure, the C’s lost to a team that only managed five hits (the C’s
managed four), but you can’t always look at a box score line and assume
the team that lost was hopeless. Case in point, tonight the pitching
staff of the Tri-City Dust Devils featured ERAs of 3.79, 1.17, 1.63,
1.80, and 3.60. Now, in anyone’s language, that’s hardcore nasty, and
it’s no shocker that the Vacuum Cleaners would roll out their best
staff all on the same night, especially when the game was tied 0-0
going all the way into the 7th inning.

Last night I sat in the front row and looked guys in the eye and could
see their minds were elsewhere, and it pissed me off. Tonight, I looked
those same guys in the eye and saw determination, drive, desperation,
and even dread when the Dust-Devils finally broke the deadlock.
Tonight’s Canadians wanted to win, and they wanted to win BAD.
(more…)

It always seems to be the way - the Vancouver Canadians
put on a fireworks show AFTER the game, which draws a huge crowd FOR
the game, and the home team gets duly beaten like a rented mule,
sending thousands of potential Canadians fans home wondering if it’s
worth coming out for another some time.

It’s got to be jarring for the C’s front office to go to all the effort
of gathering sponsors, getting permits, advertising, promoting, and
drawing in crowd of 6300, only to find the team’s best hitter is out
with injury, and the A’s have chosen a kid who got creamed in his last
appearance to start the game as pitcher.

But hey, such is life in the minors - you go to war with the army you’ve got, not with the army you need.

Speaking of ‘the team’s best hitter’, yes, you heard me correctly -
Jermaine Mitchell is injured. Still. He’s gone from "It’s nothing,
he’ll be back in a couple of days" to "We figured we’d rest him with
Salem-Keizer coming up" to "His foot is in a cast and will be for the
next two weeks." As things stand, I’m not saying Mitchell is out for
the season, but he’s going to be out long enough that the C’s need to
start relying on someone else to be the game-winner, and recently
promoted Arizona rookie Lorenzo Macias (seen left), as talented as he may be, is
unlikely to be that person.

Kevin Bunch is also unlikely to be that person - at least in the short
term - as he started last night’s game on the mound and struggled to
make even two outs, while surrendering (and I do mean surrendering)
five runs.

I’m sure Bunch has a future, and potential, and stuff, and all the
other things pitchers have at this level, but boy howdy, did he get the
tar booted out of him by Tri-City. He wasn’t unlucky - he was terrible.
Every hitter hit the ball cleanly, as if they were hitting off a tee,
and when they did, the ball stayed hit.

More? Hit the link below.
(more…)

Lorenzo Macias is not a name that most Vancouver baseball fans would
recognize, but that situation may change shortly, as Lo-Mac has landed
in the C’s outfield.

The 6′2" 188lb contact hitter has racked up a .293 batting average in
Arizona rookie ball so far this season, so while his stats are decent,
they’re not so outstanding that he just HAD to be promoted… All of
which is a roundabout way of saying, "Yo, what’s up with Jermaine
Mitchell? Has he been promoted or is his foot worse than first thought,
or what?"

Last night, the C’s rode Scott ‘Real’ Deal’s shutout pitching for six
innings, but only managed to put one run on the board in that time,
which meant when Deal (seen left) got tagged in the 7th, and Shane Presutti failed
to reduce the damage in relieving him, giving up 5 runs between them,
the Volcanoes were as good as home.

Alex Valdez had a huge night, going 3-4 with a couple of RBIs, while
Howling Greg Dowling managed a couple of hits and a run scored, but
with only two walks registered by the C’s and 7K’s against them, this
was a game that the offense lost as much as Salem-Keizer won.

The C’s roll back into town today, ready to take on the Tri-City Dust
Devils on a night that will feature fireworks at The Nat. Get your
tickets early!
 

	July 27, 2006
	Final 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E Vancouver 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 2 8 1 Salem-Keizer 0 0 0 0 0 0 5 0 X 5 6 2 box | log W: C. Tanner (1-0, 0.00); L: S. Deal (6-1, 1.79); SV: J. Trinidad (9) HR: None.