It’s not often that after five games in a young season, that a baseball player already has four multi-hit games.  Not only does Nino Leyja have that under his belt, as an 18 year old, but he is third in the NWL for batting average, with one of .421 after tonight.

Leyja, along with C’s starter Chad Lee, who is spending his third summer at Nat Bailey, put the Dust Devils to sleep, but relief pitching, and Tri-City hitting put the home team on top in the end.

C’s lineup:

RF Conner ‘Crumbler’ Crumbliss, 2B Nino ‘Playa’ Leyja, DH Kent ‘Wheels’ Walton, LF Rashun ‘The Hawk’ Dixon, C Gabriel ‘Tito’ Ortiz, 1B Wilfredo ‘Sammy’ Sosa, SS Michael ‘Switch’ Gilmartin (top), 3B Marcos ‘Louie Louie’ Luis, CF Tyreace ‘Reliable’ House, SP Chad ‘Nasty’ Lee.

This was the first time that Tyreace House, who had found himself a ‘home’ at the top of the C’s lineup to date, didn’t bat #1.

Lee got into some trouble early on in the game, as during the first inning with one gone and a man on second, he hit Kent Matthes to put a pair of runners on base.  A fly out almost ended the inning, but a double-steal put two runners in scoring position, before Bo ‘Bo’ Bowman K-d out.

All was quiet until the 4th inning, when Tri-City pitcher Rob Scahill was pulled, after not allowing anything in his first three innings of work.

Unfortunately for him, his replacement, Wes Musick, gave up a walk to the first batter he faced (Crumbliss), and then a single to the Playa, Nino Leyja.  A wild pitch with one gone put both runners in scoring position, and Crumbliss then scored on Rashun Dixon’s (right) fielders choice, which ended up being an error, allowing him to sprint to second, and the Playa to 3rd.

Gabriel ‘Tito’ Ortiz struck out, then Sammy Sosa’s infield clone Wilfredo popped out to end the threat.  1-0 C’s.

Chad Lee’s day was done after four innings, where he struck out 7, not giving up a run.  Lee’s season debut was wasted, because just two innings into Ronny Morla’s outing on the hill, Morla allowed Matthes to score on Bo Bo Bowman’s single to right.  1-1 game.

Morla did pitch well besides that, however, pitching a scoreless 7th and 8th, before turning things over to the side-arming Bo Schultz who ended up facing Bo Bowman one hitter into his tenure.  The hitter Bowman started a back-to-back single trend, and then the bases were loaded after an intentional walk.  Things were looking up with two gone, with Jeremiah Sammy’s swinging K, but Joey Wong was dinged by Schultz, and Bowman came across to score.

Walk-off, Dust Devils, who are now 5-0 this year.

Vancouver fell to 2-3, but there were a few bright spots.

Nat Notes Hitter of the Game: Nino Leyja (left) 2-4. Leyja has four multi-hit games in just five appearances, and is ranked third in the NWL in average.

Nat Notes Pitcher of the Game: Chad Lee 4 IP, H, BB, 7 SO. Lee’s third season in Vancouver got off to a great start, where he struck out 7 of the 12 outs he picked up in just four innings.  Lee was an intriguing 4th rounder from 2006, and one scout told me last year, "Lee has the stuff."

Game Notes:

- Dusty Coleman had four multi-hit games over a length of five games in total, and that was between August 30th and September 3rd of last year.  

- This was Morla’s best outing of four or more innings since July 23rd of last year, when he went 6 strong, giving up 3 hits (he had four tonight), 2 walks (none this evening), and striking out 3 (as he did today).

- Vancouver had just three hits tonight, and they were from the top two guys in the order, Conner Crumbliss and Nino Leyja (with two).  

- The C’s need to take all three remaining games of this series to win, and salvage the series from Tri-City, and are now two games back of Salem-Keizer for first place in the West, whom they play six times at Nat Bailey this coming week (starting the 28th).