C's Comeback Culminates With Walk-Off Walk

VANCOUVER, BC – A walk-off walk in the bottom of the ninth spurred the Canadians to a 3-2 triumph and another comeback win over the Hillsboro Hops [D-Backs] Friday afternoon at Rogers Field at Nat Bailey Stadium.

Tied at two to start the bottom of the ninth, Lyle Lin sparked the rally with a lead-off single and was replaced by pinch runner Michael Turconi. Alan Roden was next, and he stroked a line drive deep to right that, while well hit, was headed for the right fielder’s glove. Instead, it clanked off the leather and fell safely to the warning track dirt to put runners at second and third on the E-9.

With the infield in, Andres Sosa laced a bouncing ball up the middle that seemed ticketed for center. With no outs, Turconi wanted to make sure the ball got through the infield before heading home. Second baseman SP Chen ranged to his right and made a miraculous cross-body grab to snare the ball on the shortstop side of the bag then heaved it home after Turconi decided to dash to the plate and was thrown out by a step. That put runners at the corners, and the Hops chose to intentionally walk Alex De Jesus to load the bases and set up a force out at any base. Up stepped Garrett Spain, who hit the walk-off, two-run homer in the ninth inning on Wednesday night. He got three consecutive wide ones, took a strike then watched ball four miss down and in to hand the C’s their second walk-off win of the week and fifth of the season.

Hillsboro had started the scoring with two runs in the top of the second on a two-out, two-RBI double from Julio Carrion (the same guy who dropped Roden’s fly ball in the ninth), but Vancouver started their comeback in the fourth. Sosa led off with a single, De Jesus doubled to put two runners in scoring position and Cade Doughty grabbed the team RBI lead with a sacrifice fly that plated his 31^st RBI of the year.

Dasan Brown’s solo homer in the fifth tied the game at two and the Canadians loaded the bases on a walk, an error and a hit by pitch later in the inning but failed to push the go-ahead run across.

Naswell Paulino, Ian Churchill and Matt Svanson (W, 4-1) combined on the final five innings to keep the Hops scoreless after starter Dahian Santos went four innings, scattered four hits, walked two and matched a season high with seven strikeouts.

With the win, Vancouver improves to a Northwest League-best 34-26 and will remain in sole possession of first place no matter what Spokane does against Eugene tonight. Five games remain in the first half and the magic number for a first half title is now at four (counting the fact that the C’s have the tiebreaker over the Indians).

Reigning Northwest League Pitcher of the Week Devereaux Harrison gets the ball for the Canadians on Saturday afternoon at 1:05 p.m. opposite #10 D-Backs prospect Yu-Min Lin. Gates open at noon and coverage is available on Bally Live, the MiLB First Pitch app, CanadiansBaseball.com and the Vancouver Canadians Radio Network.