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).