FanPost

Opening day in Vancouver: Game report

Frustrated by the lack of coverage for the low-A ball teams in my area, I've decided to hit as many Vancouver Canadians games as I can this season and keep a blog updated on the goings on at Nat Bailey Stadium. This may or may not have interest outside the British Columbia area, being as most of the C's are late draft picks and free agent project players picked up on the shores of the Dominican Republic, but as the high draft picks sign their contracts and filter in to Vancouver, I'm thinking the background I can bring you guys will be something of value.

Either way, you'll find the blog at http://vancouvercanadians.blogspot.com.

What follows is my game report from last night's home opener. 4500 people turned out on a cloudy Sunday night, and they were treated to one for the purists.

June 26: Canadians come from behind to steal 2-1 home opener victory

The crowd was big (for short season ball, anyway), the grass mondo green, and the players sufficiently nervous to meet their new home crowd for the first time. Opening day in Vancouver is always a happy affair, and though the home team traditionally crumbles in short season ball, where high school kids and late-draft college players come to shaky terms with their first professional home crowd, it generally doesn't matter. Most in the crowd are just happy to celebrate the coming of summer, and the onset of another Vancouver baseball season. Tonight would be no exception... though the script didn't exactly play out as the home fans were used to.

The 2005 Vancouver Canadians, fresh off a road trip to Yakima where they brought home a 4-1 series win to start the season, looked dangerous and pumped as they took the field against the Tri-City Dust Devils. First baseman Hass Pratt, who had absolutely owned Yakima with three homerun shots in four games, stood tall above most of his teammates, already drawing rapturous cheers from the Vancouver crowd - and they hadn't even seen him play yet.

Alas, the anticipation did not match the reality as the C's and Dev's leapt into defensive action - a sweet 1-4-3 double play broke up the Dust Devils chances of scoring a run in the first inning - and though a full-sprawl highlight reel catch from Chalon Tietje and some nifty groundball snares from Pratt were enough to keep the adults awake, the lack of pop from the bats turned the opening half of the game into a grinding pitcher's duel.

Canadians starter Joe Newby, an Alaska native out of Colorado State, who got his ass handed to him in the opening game of the season in a 10-4 loss to the Bears - the only game the C's have dropped to date - was this time a much different pitcher, hurling solid, fast and ferocious stuff for the first five innings, while Dust Devils pitcher Cook looked calm and assured through three, relying on a solid infield defense and Nat Bailey Stadium's deep, deep outfield to get out of the first three innings without surrendering a walk or a hit.

Though Cook was far from dominant (his lack of strikeouts indicative of his reliance on defense), he must have been a little annoyed when his manager took him out for reliever David Patton in the 4th. A 12th round draft pick in 2004, Patton, who had played earlier this season in high-A Asheville, only to be pounded heavily (0-3, 10.93 ERA) and sent back down to short season ball for a breather, hadn't exactly covered himself in glory in his first start for the Dust Devils, but cruised through his first three innings with the same style Cook had before him. The C's hitters, on the other hand, seemed to have no problem finding the Devils pitching, but their determination to impress the Vancouver faithful by hitting a homerun was misguided at best, and completely ridiculous at worst.

The Nat Bailey Stadium outfield is as big as any outfield in minor league baseball. With 365 foot lines down the right and left field walls, the distance to center is listed as 396 feet, which is no easy task - but the height of the walls (20 feet at its highest point) makes a dinger all the harder to get over. The Oakland organization knows this, and has their coaches keep track of deep fly balls, assessing those as being a sign of solid progress for their players, even if the end result is a can of corn for a centerfielder with his back to the wall. That's a good thing for Ty Bubalo, who rocked on to his back foot and drilled a moonshot into left center that, by rights, should have been a homer. That it wasn't, and that Bubalo's stats continue to sit below the .100 mark will no doubt be eating at him, but Bubalo looked solid behind the plate, and even more solid in the team leader role that his previous experience at this level (four years so far) has prepared him for.

When Newby got tired in the 6th and gave up a single, two wild pitches and a sac fly run to go behind 1-0, 20th round draftee, Stephen Bryant, came in to keep things tight. And with 4K's in 2 innings, that's exactly what he did. But the damage had been done, and with a one-run deficit and only four innings left to make a comeback, there was blood in the water and panic in the air.

For the first 2/3 of this game, the C's lined up to hit the pitching deep, launching long flyballs that teased the crowd but never threatened the long Nat Bailey outfield wall, and that `power display' kept the Tri-City no-hitter going until the 7th inning, when third baseman Wes Long squeaked a tricky grounder to Dust Devils first baseman Phillip Cuadrado, only for him to mishandle a tough bounce. It may have been a little hometown scorer help that saw the play listed as a hit and not an error, but it woke up the slumbering Vancouver fans, who had barely uttered a word since a hushed rendition of Oh Canada before the game.

In the bottom of the 8th, slugger Hass Pratt came up to the plate with a booming crowd behind him. His reputation as a homerun hitter had preceded him, but Pratt was not looking for the long bomb - not with no outs, anyway. Instead he rocked onto a low fastball and lined it into right-center, making it to first in a trot. Jose Garcia, a 2001 non-draft pick-up from the Dominican Republic, came in looking to bunt Pratt along, but the big outfielder's bunting skills could use a little polish. With the signal calling for a hit'n'run (or bunt'n'run I guess you'd call it if you were picky), Pratt took off on the pitch, Garcia flailed around the ball, and the Tri-City catcher drilled a throw to second where Pratt slid under the shortstop, who was trying to catch and tag in mid-air. For mine, Pratt was out. The umpire disagreed.

Garcia duly struck out, and after a wild pitch sent Pratt to third, Bubalo was called out on strikes in another questionable umpiring call that had the big catcher yapping at the ump as he went back to the dugout.

So here it is... crunch time. 2 outs, a man on third, a run down, and you're in the bottom of the 8th. What do you do? What do you do? I'll tell you what you do - you send in 6'2 infield stringbean Wilber Perrez, who dispatches a solid pitch into right center for a stand-up double, tying the game and electrifying the crowd.

That might have been enough to send the C's faithful home happy, but it wasn't all the Canadians had in store. Frank Martinez strolled up to the plate and copied Perrez to the letter, driving in the runner and giving the home team Oakland affiliate a 2-1 lead. A pitcher change ensued, with the shaken Patton, whom the home fans had dubbed "Peewee", trudging off the field with the abuse of the Nat Bailey bleacher bums ringing in his ears. "This is REAL baseball, Peewee!"

All that remained was for the Canadians to close the game out, and so, in came the 6'2 225lb 29th round draftee Brad Kilby. A lifelong Giants fan, Kilby apparently had his picture taken with Giants closer Craig Lefferts as a four-year-old. Now, some eighteen years later, with Lefferts serving as pitching coach for the Canadians, the big lefty handed Kilby the ball and said three words I'll bet the kid never thought he'd hear from his hero's mouth... "Close it out."

Ground-out. Fly-out. Pop-out. Game over.

C's win. C's win.

Game notes:
The hitting lines look terrible for Vancouver from this game, but it must be noted that the defense was solid from both sides, especially Tri-City. The infield was on fire, the outfield covered much ground and was handy with the glove, and nobody let up for a moment.

Bubalo looked commanding behind the plate, but if he doesn't start hitting soon, he may well see himself platooning with the draftees playing behind him, Anthony Recker and Shawn Callahan (18th and 22nd round draftees respectively). Bubalo has been in the system for four years now, but he was drafted out of high school, so there's no reason to think anyone in Oakland is rushing him, but you'd still like to see a guy get over the Mendoza line as soon as possible.

Chalon Tietje didn't look real comfortable in the lead-off role. The kid can hit, that's for certain, and he can surely run and field, but there's question as to whether he's a `get on base' kind of guy or a `clutch hit to score a run' kind of guy. I tend to think the latter.

Joe Newby really rocked the speed clock a few times last night. Though his pitching, for the most part, looks in the high-80's/low 90's (at least to the eye), he unloaded a couple that had the crowd jumping back in their seats and must surely have touched on the mid-90's range. His control was good, but he tired early.

Hass Pratt is a moose. He's built like a perfect V-shape, and he has a great swing that seems to have no trouble locating pitching at this level, but he's going to have to learn that, if you want to score runs at The Nat, you have to get on base. One thing worth noting was his defense at first - last year's one-bagger, Tommy Everidge, was a defensive liability, but Pratt has a lightning glove and he's quick to the bag, with a good stretch when he needs it.

Jose Garcia towers in right field - he looks like a giant out there. But what impresses is that, though he has a lumbering frame, he's actually quite fleet of foot. A deep foul ball down the right field line was hit in the sixth inning, and Garcia set off after it like a rabbit, slamming into the right field bullpen wall as the ball just eked over it. I'm sure the coaches will tell him it's not worth killing himself to catch a foul ball, but as a fan, you've got to like the kid's commitment. Now if he can just work on his bunting.

Third baseman Wes Long has a little experience at this level, having been brought up from the Training Leagues for the playoffs last season, but he still has an air of rookieness about him. He collided once with Bubalo as the catcher called loudly for a pop fly in foul territory (big Bubalo took the hit but brought down the ball anyway), and he fluffed at least one long throw to third. At the plate, he seems nervous, which leads me to think that maybe a move down the batting order would take a little heat off him.

Overall, a good solid game. If the C's hitters learn how to play a little smallball, and the infield works itself out a little more, this will be a tough team to beat down the stretch in the NWL this season.