Michael Richard has been playing of late. And stealing of late. In fact, he’s been playing and stealing a lot of late, so tonight he was given the lead-off role for the Vancouver Canadians against NWL East rivals, the Yakima Bears.

And, interestingly, he made great use of that chance to lead, by basically taking the game out of Yakima’s hands before an out was even registered.

The lineup for Vancouver:
Michael ‘Runway’ Richard DH
JD ‘Beanball’ Pruitt LF
Sean ‘Doc’ Doolittle 1B
Amblin’ Danny Hamblin 3B
Matt ‘Authentic’ Sulentic RF
Shane ‘3-0′ Keough CF
Dante ‘Brother’ Love C
Carlos ‘Peachy’ Arrieche 2B
Matt ‘Manta’ Ray SS
Joe ‘Mighty’ Quine P

Let’s talk you through the details on the flip side.

Richard opened the final game of the Yakima road trip in a way that, essentially, let the Bears know they were not likely to be a factor against his one-man-show. With a single up the middle to bring in the 1st inning, Richard got his thieving shoes on and stole 2nd, then stole 3rd, and then trotted home on Doc Doolittle’s RBI single to left in the best Rickey Henderson-esque fashion to give the C’s a lead before the anthems had even ended. 

But one-run innings are for sissies, so Danny Hamblin singled to push Doolittle into scoring position, which Matt Sulentic took advantage of when he duly singled The Doc home, making it 2-0 Vancouver. Thereafter, a wild pitch and a Dante Love RBI single brought in Hamblin to score, with Sulentic getting home on a fielding error by Bears CF Evan Frey.

With Joe ‘Mighty’ Quine on the mound for the C’s, Yakima has looked as likely to score as a 50-year-old accountant turning up to The Roxy wearing neon green Crocs and a Speedo.

Bears starting pitcher, Ian Harrington, hasn’t quite been so clinical, serving up a BP pitch that Authentic Sulentic belted over the right field wall, and after his second baseman booted a ball to let Shane Keough on base, 3-0 went on a stealing spree of his own, taking 2nd and 3rd before coming home on an Arrieche sac fly to center.

6-0 Van City, and by this point, the Bears had just about had enough of being made to look like fools. A pair of doubles to JoJo Batten and Razor Ramon Ramirez brought in a run that the men in black’n'red hoped would would spark some sort of a comeback, and to their credit, they didn’t let the C’s run away with things.

That said, they didn’t make up much ground either. Peachy Arrieche nailed a hard hit triple to right in the top of the 5th, scoring Dante Love to keep the 6-run gap intact, and a wild pitch from reliever Jason Urquidez stretched the gap by another run when Arrieche made it home.

But the Bears wouldn’t die - a ‘Marky’ Mark Hallberg double brought in a run by Joel Melendez to narrow the lead to 8-3, and after Melendez was called out on strikes and then ejected for arguing the call in the 7th, a walk and two singles kept things interesting when Evan Frey scored for the Bears, but 3 walks and an error in the 8th gave the C’s all the chance they needed to walk in another run and make Yakima’s efforts academic.

Aaron Jenkins came out in the 9th to nail the game shut for the
Canadians, and did so  in quick time.

June 28, 2007
	Final    1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9      R   H   E   Vancouver   4   0   2   0   2   0   0   1   0      9   8   0   Yakima   0   0   0   2   1   0   1   0   0      4   8   3  wrap | box | log W: S. Hodsdon (1-0, 5.40); L: I. Harrington (0-2, 13.50) HR: VAN: M. Sulentic (1).

GAME NOTES:

* Matt Sulentic’s demotion to short-season ball seems to have been just the ticket to get him back into furious form. His home run shot tonight was a welcome sign that his timing is back, and the 3 runs he drove in on the back of a 2-4 performance were most timely.

* Runway Richard went 2-5 from the lead-off spot tonight, but his three stolen bases point to him being a genuine baserunning threat.

* Don’t look now, but Dante Love is hitting like an old pro. Fresh from the news that Matt Smith, the highest taken draftee catcher for Oakland this season, will go directly to Kane County, seem to have given the platooning catching crew all the reason they need to play their asses off. Love is hitting .308

* On the mound, the pitching was fairly shaky, at least when compared to the monster firebreathers we’ve had in the pen over the last few seasons.  Joe Quine surrendered 2 earned in 4 innings, Scott Hodsdon let one earned run in over 2 innings, and Chuck ‘Kerplunk’ Kerfoot followed suit. Only Aaron Jenkins came out of the game largely clean.

The C’s return to Nat Bailey Stadium for games from Friday night through to Sunday, hopefully with a new boss in place, but definitely with a strong winning percentage and a logjam of talented players who are most certainly going places.