Swinging In The Rain

VANCOUVER, B.C. -- The Hillsboro Hops matched a season high with 17 hits Tuesday night at Vancouver. Turns out, they needed just about all of them.

Despite building leads of 7-0, 8-1 and 10-3, the Hops bullpen nearly gave the game away with a trainload of late walks before Edgar Isea retired the final two batters in an unlikely save situation to settle a 10-7 decision at Nat Bailey Stadium.

The game was delayed 29 minutes by rain in the top of the fourth inning. By then, Hillsboro had already secured a 4-0 lead. Cristofer Torin matched a season high with four hits, plating the first Hops run with a solo homer in the second inning and contributing to a three-run third with an RBI single.

Vancouver starting pitcher Chris McElvain (0-3) lasted just three innings, surrendering five hits and four earned runs.

Former Mariners prospect Ashton Izzi made his second Hops start, but it too was truncated to three innings due to the rain delay. He allowed just two infield hits and struck out one over three scoreless frames, but walked three batters in a portent of things to come.

With the Hops leading 7-0 after battering lefty reliever J.J. Sanchez for five hits and four runs over two innings, Daniel Nunez (4-5) surrendered a solo home run to Cutter Coffey for Vancouver's first run of the game in the bottom of the fifth. The next batter, Sean Keys, hit a line drive back up the middle that caromed off Nunez's upper body to Torin at shorstop, who threw him out. Nunez appeared to be unbothered after taking the hit, striking out the next two batters to end the inning, but his night would be over after that.

That's when things started to turn hinky for the Hoppies. Joangel Gonzalez escaped unscathed in the sixth, helped by an inning-ending double play after a leadoff Alexis Hernandez single and a one-out walk. But two more walks in the seventh would come around to score on a Gonzalez wild pitch and a Carter Cunningham double. That made it 8-3 Hillsboro.

The Hops added two more runs in the eighth inning. Jansel Luis reached after a muffed grounder to second baseman Cutter Coffey, the second of three Vancouver errors. It was Hillsboro's seventh consecutive leadoff batter to reach base in the game and six of them would score. After a walk to Druw Jones, Torin rifled an RBI single to right for his fourth hit and third RBI. Austin Marozas walked Junior Franco to load the bases before giving way to Jonathan Todd, who issued a free pass to Kenny Castillo, forcing in the 10th Hops run.

Leading 10-3 in the eighth, things seemed relatively settled, but alas, no. Dawson Brown promptly loaded the bases on a pair of walks and a hit batter, but got a gift double play when leadoff hitter Eddie Micheletti hit a comebacker leading to a 1-2-3 twin killing. A wild pitch sent Jay Harry home with the fourth Vancouver run, but Junior Franco made what turned out to be a critical defensive play, robbing Coffey of a base hit with a diving catch in left to end the inning as the C's stranded a runner at third.

Still with a relatively comfortable lead in the ninth, things got steadily more unsteady. Following Brown's lead, Jake Fitzgibbons walked the first three batters he saw, before getting Hernandez to fly out to center. Keys scored on the play to make it 10-5 Hillsboro. Edward Duran followed with a sharp single past the diving shortstop Torin to reload the bases. That would be it for Fitzgibbons.

Now with the tying run in the on-deck circle, Isea entered the game in a save situation. Five pitches later, Jay Harry walked for the fourth consecutive plate appearance, forcing in Arjun Nimmala and bringing Bryce Arnold to the plate representing the tying run.

Arnold had doubled back in the fourth inning and has ten homers on the season, but his sharp shot to center was well short of leaving the yard. Still, it was deep enough to plate Carter Cunningham with the seventh Vancouver run and brought one of the league's top home run hitters to the plate in Micheletti.

With the count 1-2 and chants of "ED-DIE, ED-DIE" raining down from the crowd of 3.568 mingling with the misty rain falling from the sky, the Canadians' slugger hit a foul pop up the third base line. Castillo went down to one knee as he made the catch for the final out, bringing a merciful end to a game that concluded nearly four hours after it started.

Torin led the Hops' season-high-tying hit attack and drove in a game-high three runs. But the 20-year-old Venezuelan shortstop was far from alone. Seven of Hillsboro's nine batters had multi-hit games and all reached base at least three times. Luis went 3-for-6 with a triple, RBi and two runs scored. Druw Jones reached base four times with a single, double, two walks, RBI and run scored.

The yang to the hitting yin was a combined 13 walks, five wild pitches, balk and hit batter by six Hillsboro pitchers, hearkening back to the Hops' staff's struggles earlier in the season. Harry and Keys each walked four times for the Canadians. Vancouver was limited to seven hits allowed two unearned runs with their combined defensive miscues. Duran was the only Canadian with two hits in the game.

The teams return to action Wednesday night with pregame coverage beginning and 6:50 p.m and first pitch at 7:05 on Rip City Radio 620.