Friday, Aug. 28, 2009

Dust Devils' Ocasio earns NWL top honor

HERALD NEWS SERVICES AND STAFF

YAKIMA -- On a night when Tri-City Dust Devils manager Fred Ocasio was named the Northwest League's manager of the year, his team inched closer to the East Division title.

Tri-City won its sixth straight game Thursday night, beating last-place Yakima 8-1 at County Stadium to reduce its magic number to win the division title to four.

"I like the way we're playing, especially over the last week," Ocasio said. "We're performing well in all three phases of the game -- pitching, defense and hitting."

Ocasio has led the Dust Devils to a 40-26 record following Thursday's win, and he has amassed a 151-143 managerial record since taking the team's reins in 2006.

Ocasio acted as Tri-City's hitting coach from 2001-2005.

Dust Devils relief pitchers Charles Ruiz and Craig Bennigson also were selected to the NWL's All-Star team.

Ruiz, a right-hander leads the NWL with 16 saves and 29 appearances and has an ERA of 1.26. Bennigson, a lefty, leads the league with eight wins and has an ERA of 1.69.

Yakima's Houston Summers, in his first start of the season, yielded 10 hits and six runs -- all earned -- over four innings.

The Dust Devils reached the knuckleballer for a first-inning run on three hits, then batted around to score five times in the second.

Run-scoring singles by Jeremiah Sammy and Kevin Clark preceded a two-run double by Bo Bowman to key the uprising, which was capped by Kent Matthes' RBI two-bagger.

"We saw him (Summers) so much in spring training, in extended, it was like we hit against him every other day," Ocasio said. "So I just reminded the guys to stay back and drive the ball, and they did."

Though Summers held Tri-City scoreless through the third and fourth innings.

Ben Dollar allowed a one-out single to Alex Feinberg in the fifth and then a ringing, two-out homer to right by Tim Wheeler to finish the scoring.