Pitchers’ Duel at the Pasco Corral Goes Vancouver’s Way
Starters Ryan Costeiu of the Tri-City Dust Devils (0-3 2H) and Rafael Sanchez of the Vancouver Canadians (3-0 2H) offered the 1,507 gathered at Gesa Stadium an old-fashioned pitchers’ duel Sunday night, with Vancouver closing out the seven-game series with a 1-0 win. The only run of the game came
Starters Ryan Costeiu of the Tri-City Dust Devils (0-3 2H) and Rafael Sanchez of the Vancouver Canadians (3-0 2H) offered the 1,507 gathered at Gesa Stadium an old-fashioned pitchers’ duel Sunday night, with Vancouver closing out the seven-game series with a 1-0 win.
The only run of the game came with two outs in the top of the 1st inning when Canadians 1B Peyton Williams hit a tweener groundball up the middle that deflected off a sliding Tri-City 2B Caleb Ketchup and into shallow center field. Vancouver 3B Jamari Baylor, who walked to lead off the game and stole second to get into scoring position, rounded third and scored for what was believed at the time an early 1-0 lead.
The Dust Devils sought to answer back quickly when CF Joe Redfield led off the bottom of the 1st with a double slotted down the right field line. The Texan would steal third and give his squad two opportunities to bring him in from 90 feet away, but Sanchez (3-1) finished the inning with a pair of punchouts to keep the Canadians in front.
From there Costeiu (0-3) and Sanchez put the clamps down on their opponents, with the Dust Devils hurler retiring the final 13 batters he saw to get through five innings giving up just the run on the one hit and striking out eight. Costeiu threw 69 pitches in his continuing ramp up to full-length outings, 47 for strikes.
Sanchez was just as stingy, not allowing a base runner until Ketchup singled on the infield to get aboard in the bottom of the 5th. The speedy infielder then swiped second, matching Spokane OF Cole Carrigg at the top of the Northwest League stolen base race with his 26th steal of the year. LF Jadiel Sanchez tried to get Ketchup to the pay station but his line drive to center found the glove of Vancouver CF Jace Bohrofen to preserve the Vancouver advantage.
Tri-City’s best chance to score came in the bottom of the 6th when RF Werner Blakely tripled to right to lead off the inning. That gave the Dust Devils three tries to get him home, but Sanchez struck out both Redfield and SS Adrian Placencia and got 1B Matt Coutney to fly out to deep left to end the threat. The right-hander from Holguin, Cuba finished the night with a career-high 12 strikeouts over seven innings of work, walking none and allowing only three hits.
Relievers Ryan Langford and Luke Murphy came out of the bullpen for Tri-City and each threw two scoreless innings, with Langford getting himself out of bases loaded trouble in the 7th. Both Langford and Murphy allowed just one hit, with Murphy striking out four in his second appearance for the Dust Devils in 2024.
Their Canadian counterpart, righty Conor Larkin, threw a scoreless 8th and the home nine had one more chance to try to tie and/or win the game in the bottom of the 9th. Facing reliever Grayson Thurman, Tri-City got the tying run on when Coutney struck out but reached on a dropped third strike to keep the game alive. That brought 3B Cam Williams, who homered twice Saturday night, to the plate as the potential winning run. There would be no heroics for Williams Sunday, though, as Thurman struck him out to close out the seven-game series with Vancouver’s sixth win of the week.
The 1-0 shutout continued the Dust Devils’ struggles in 2024 against the Canadians, who have won 14 of the 17 games in this year’s season series. The teams will play one more six-game series July 30-August 4 at Vancouver’s Rogers Field at Nat Bailey Stadium.
Tri-City leaves this last week behind to make their final visit of the season to Eugene’s PK Park, where six games with the Emeralds await. The series begins Tuesday night at 6:35 p.m., with right-hander Joel Hurtado (5-4, 4.98 ERA) getting the start for the Dust Devils. The Emeralds’ starter has not been announced as of press time.
Broadcast coverage of Tuesday night’s series opener begins with the pregame show at 6:15 p.m. both here and on the MiLB app.
Tri-City returns home for an abbreviated three-game series with the Spokane Indians starting Monday, July 1 at Gesa Stadium. Tickets for the Spokane series 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.