Spokane's Spivey in the swing of things

It's hard to imagine a better first six weeks in professional baseball than those that Seth Spivey has had.

Through 18 games, the 10th-round pick in last month's Draft leads the Northwest League with a .380 batting average, and his team has the best record in the circuit at 18-7.

Spivey went 4-for-5 with a walk, an RBI and a run scored on Tuesday night in Short-Season Spokane's 18th win, a 16-4 rout of visiting Tri-City.

It was the first four-hit performance of Spivey's young career and comes on the heels of Sunday's 3-for-5 effort on his 24th birthday, one in which he clubbed his first pro home run and scored twice.

"I'm just trying to stay inside of myself and get pitches I can hit," the Rangers' second base prospect said. "It's been really fun to start my pro career with a team that's having the best start Spokane's had in [over] 100 years."

The Indians opened the season 12-1, a feat unmatched since the 1911 team went 13-1.

"The way we're hitting, it kind of helps take pressure off the pitching staff, and they take pressure off us," Spivey said. "We keep putting up runs and they keep putting up zeros."

On Tuesday, eight of Spokane's starting nine notched a hit, and the team totaled a season-high 19. Spivey's four -- all singles -- came in the second, third, sixth and seventh innings. He walked in the first and struck out in the fifth.

"It's a lot of fun to hit on nights like tonight when everybody's hitting," said the Abilene Christian product. "It seems like every other at-bat, you're getting another at-bat. I was up in six innings out of the eight. Anytime you get to come up that much, it's pretty fun."

Spivey is on a 7-for-10 tear, but he experienced his first 0-for-5 night on Friday.

"You just got to go day by day. You can't let the past [affect you]," he said. "You've just got to forget it and go get them next time."

His .380 batting average is 35 points higher than the league's next leading hitter -- teammate Frank Tendler.

"I feel good about it, but we've still a got long season left," Spivey said. "Hopefully, I can keep it up, but I just want to keep getting on base for the guys behind me."

Tendler doubled, singled and plated three runs Tuesday, while Jose Trevino and Juremi Profar each had three hits for the Indians.

Cesar Galvez went 3-for-5 with an RBI and two runs scored for the Dust Devils.