Sunday, Jul. 26, 2009

Dust Devils take 3rd straight from AquaSox

From Herald news services

EVERETT -- In the first two games of the Everett AquaSox's five game series with the Tri-City Dust Devils, they gave up runs early and often.

In total, Everett gave up 18 runs in the two games.

Saturday night was a much different story.

Six-and-a-half innings went by before either team was able to get on the board, but the result was the same -- Tri-City took its third straight from the AquaSox, 3-1.

Great pitching often overcomes great hitting. Both teams started the game with great pitching, but only the Dust Devils finished with it and it showed in the final innings.

Everett starter Taylor Stanton pitched seven innings, giving up just three hits with eight strikeouts.

"Stanton threw outstanding, he was ahead all night and hit his spots," Everett manager John Tamargo said. "We wasted a great pitching performance by him."

Tri-City starter Rob Scahill was equally impressive. Scahill pitched five no-hit innings.

"My off-speed stuff was terrible. I threw four-seam and two-seam fastballs every other pitch," Scahill said. "It just shows if you locate (pitches) you can be successful."

Still Everett had some chances with the Dust Devils committing four errors and Scahill walking three batters. But the AquaSox didn't score until the seventh off reliever Kyle Walker.

The way the game had been going, it appeared that run might hold up, but Tri-City answered in the eighth as Alex Feinberg and Ben Paulsen each had RBI singles.

In the top of the ninth, Tri-City created a little more breathing room when Kevin Clark scored on a sacrifice fly by Tim Wheeler.

The bullpen did the rest for Tri-City (23-12), with Rhett Ballard picking up the win.

"The bullpen has been great all year," Scahill said. "They do a fantastic job keeping us in games and winning games."