Largest Ever April Dust Devils Crowd Sees Rooster Tails Stymied by Indians

The Tri-City Dust Devils (1-7) received both their longest starting pitching outing of 2024 and a big crowd Saturday night at Gesa Stadium, where the Spokane Indians (8-0) took an 8-3 win in the second-to-last game of their six-game series.

2,226 fans, the largest-ever April attendance for a Dust Devils game, made their way through the gates to enjoy a beautiful night for a ballgame and the battling effort of the Columbia River Rooster Tails, who debuted in 2024 by staying within range of Spokane for most of the night.

Right-hander Walbert Ureña (0-1) helped the cause by getting through six innings of work, despite giving up four runs on six hits. Ureña only walked one in his start and retired the last seven batters he faced, rebounding from issuing six free passes (5 BB, 1 HBP) in his first outing of the young season.

The Indians opened the scoring by getting to Ureña early, putting up four runs in the first four innings capped by a solo home run to right field by Spokane C Bryant Betancourt in the 4^th inning that gave his team a 4-0 lead.

The 5^th inning, though, saw the Rooster Tails rev their offensive engines a bit by pushing two runs across to halve the Indians lead. 1B Matt Coutney singled to start things off, and 3B Ben Gobbel followed with an RBI double to the left-center fence that scored Coutney from first to make it a 4-1 game. Two groundouts, the second an RBI grounder off the bat of C Kevin Bruggeman, enabled Gobbel to score to draw Columbia River within two at 4-2.

That would be all the Rooster Tails would muster offensively off Spokane starter Sean Sullivan (1-0), who made it through five innings to get his first win of 2024. The lefty from Boston gave up the two runs on five hits, striking out six along the way.

The visitors from the Lilac City seemed to find an answer every time the Rooster Tails provided a challenge, plating two in the 7^th to stretch the lead to 6-2. After SS Denzer Guzman tripled to lead off the bottom of the 8^th and came home on a sac fly by RF Jadiel Sanchez to move Columbia River within three at 6-3, Indians 3B Kyle Karros put the game away in the top of the 9^th.

With a man on, Karros hit a hard line drive to center field that got past a diving catch attempt and rolled all the way to the wall. Sprinting hard, the Indians’ man on the hot corner made it all the way around for a two-run inside-the-park home run that closed the scoring.

The Rooster Tails had nine hits on the night, getting multi-hit efforts from Coutney and Gobbel as well as 2B Caleb Ketchup, who stretch a young hitting streak to four games.

Tri-City will look to avoid a sweep in the series finale with Spokane at 1:30 p.m. Sunday afternoon at Gesa Stadium, where fans are encouraged to Red Out the Park. Fans wearing red will receive a raffle ticket for a chance to win a prize, and fans wearing Los Angeles Angels gear will get two tickets for the raffle.

Right-hander Chris Clark (0-1, 7.20 ERA) will make his second start of the week with a chance to help his team salvage a game in the series. Righty Victor Juarez (0-0, 4.15 ERA), a returner from 2023’s Indians rotation, gets the ball for Spokane.

Broadcast coverage will begin with the pregame show at 1:10 p.m. Sunday afternoon, both here and on the MiLB app. Video coverage, via MiLB.tv, will begin shortly before the scheduled 1:30 p.m. first pitch.

Tickets for Sunday's matinee are on sale now, with special ticket rates available for groups of 20 or more. For more information on Dust Devils single game, season, mini-plan (11, 22, 33) and group tickets, visit the team’s official ticketing site, dustdevilsbaseball.com.