Tri-City Blanked in British Columbia
Three runs in the bottom of the 8th inning helped the Vancouver Canadians (21-14 2H) to a 4-0 win over the Tri-City Dust Devils (13-22 2H) Saturday night at Rogers Field at Nat Bailey Stadium, giving Vancouver a three games to two lead in the final series between the two
Three runs in the bottom of the 8th inning helped the Vancouver Canadians (21-14 2H) to a 4-0 win over the Tri-City Dust Devils (13-22 2H) Saturday night at Rogers Field at Nat Bailey Stadium, giving Vancouver a three games to two lead in the final series between the two teams in 2024.
Tri-City starter Keythel Key (0-1) pitched quite well in his 2024 Dust Devils debut, going five innings and allowing only a run on three hits with six strikeouts and only two walks. The 21-year-old Valencia, Venezuela native, who finished the 2023 season with a pair of starts against the Canadians, flashed a fastball in the upper 90s and faced the minimum in three of his five frames.
The lone run Key gave up to Vancouver came in the bottom of the 2nd inning when 2B Jay Harry, recently sent from the Minnesota Twins organization to the Blue Jays in a trade deadline deal, crushed a ball just fair over the right field wall on the very first pitch he saw for a solo home run that gave the Canadians a 1-0 lead.
Vancouver’s starter, righty Grant Rogers (1-0), made the lead stand up by throwing eight shutout innings in his High-A debut, going farther into an outing than any Canadians starter has in the High-A era (from 2021-now). Rogers struck out nine and allowed three hits, walking one and allowing a total of four baserunners.
The Dust Devils gave themselves their best chance to tie the game in the 8th inning. DH Kevin Bruggeman singled the opposite way with one out and stole second, also drawing an errant throw on which he advanced to third. 3B Arol Vera then drew a two-out walk, putting the potential go-ahead run at first with the tying run 90 feet away, but both he and Bruggeman would be left on when Rogers collected his final strikeout of his night to end the threat.
Any pressure Tri-City hoped to put on their opponents in the 9th dissipated in the bottom of the 8th when Vancouver 1B Peyton Williams hit a two-run double off the wall in left-center and LF Jackson Hornung sent an RBI double to the warning track in right-center to push the lead to 4-0. Canadians closer Grayson Thurman, who had geared up for the save, gave up a double to SS Adrian Placencia in the top of the 9th but stranded him to complete the shutout.
2B Mac McCroskey and 1B Sonny DiChiara both added hits to help the cause on the offensive side of things for the Dust Devils.
The series and season finale for Tri-City and Vancouver takes place at 1:05 p.m. Sunday afternoon at Rogers Field at Nat Bailey Stadium. Southpaw Houston Harding (2-2, 1.38 ERA) makes his second start of the week, taking on right-hander Carson Pierce (2-1, 1.85 ERA) with the Dust Devils looking for a split share of the series.
Broadcast coverage of the game begins with the pregame show at 12:45 p.m. Sunday afternoon, both here and on the MiLB app.
After the ballgame, Tri-City returns from Vancouver to host the Spokane Indians for a six-game set beginning Tuesday, August 6, 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.