Gm 65: Pitching takes center stage in C's 1-0 extra innings victory

PASCO, Wa. -- Adam Kloffenstein went seven shutout innings followed by three spotless frames from Luke Gillingham as Vancouver powered past Tri-City 1-0 in ten innings on Wednesday night out at Gesa Stadium. The victory improves the Canadians to 4-1 in the past five games and 7-3 over the past ten.
Kloffenstein, making his final start as an 18-year old, put together his finest outing of the season scattering just five hits over his seven scoreless innings striking out seven while lowering his ERA to a miniscule 2.16 on the summer. Wednesday night's effort was his longest foray into a game and in the seventh inning ran into trouble as both Logan Driscoll and Sean Guilbe found base hits putting runners at first and third base with no one out in the scoreless game. Kloffenstein bared down and got a groundout followed by back-to-back strikeouts to put the cherry on his best effort of 2019.
Luke Gillingham would follow Kloffenstein and struck out four over his three frames which including a scoreless tenth inning that had Matthew Acosta in scoring position thanks to MiLB's rule of beginning each half inning with a runner at second base.
Minutes earlier the Canadians had captured the lead with MC Gregory Contreras scoring Jesus Lopez from second base on a hard hit single back up the middle off Austin Medders. Now in the bottom of the tenth, Gillingham would field a sacrifice bunt from Luke Becker advancing Acosta to third base before striking out both Jordy Barley and Alison Quintero to end the game.
Offensively, the Canadians struck out 15 times in the win, managing just three hits off a trio of pitchers including tri-City starter Angel Acevado who went five innings allowing just two hits striking out a season-high eight. The Dust Devils did not allow a runner past first base through the first nine innings of the game and the only reason Vancouver got a runner to second base in the tenth was thanks to the extra inning rule put in place in 2018 by MiLB.
The win went to Luke Gillingham (2-1) and the hard luck loss fell at the feet of Deacon Medders (0-4).
In 11 head-to-head meetings the Canadians are hitting just .207 vs. Tri-City while the Dust Devils are hitting .209 -- its on the mound where Vancouver has a decisive advantage to this point in the season as the C's team ERA is just 1.48 as opposed to the 2.74 ERA that Tri-City carries into Thursday's finale.
Alex Nolan gets the ball in the rubber match of this three-game series as the Canadians are four back of Spokane for top spot in the North Division. However, the Canadians are likely fans of Spokane at this point as should the Indians claim both the first and second half pennants than the remaining three teams in the division will fight for the tiebreaker which is best winning percentage in the second half. Based on those merits, the Canadians are just two back of Tri-City and one behind Everett with 11 games remaining.
Vancouver returns to Nat Bailey Stadium to open a seven-game homestand starting Friday, August 23 at 7:05pm vs. Salem-Keizer (August 23-26) and Tri-City (August 27-29) with tickets available at www.canadiansbaseball.com.
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