Tri-City Dust Devils becoming ‘Angels’ under this 10-year deal

It’s now official: the Tri-City Dust Devils will be an affiliate of the Los Angeles Angels for the next 10 years, starting with the 2021 season.

Dust Devils officials announced they had signed the agreement to become the Angels’ High-A affiliate, and would play in what is called the High-A West, which consists of six of the former Northwest League teams.

“We’re thrilled,” said Dust Devils team president Brent Miles. “It’s a great day for the Tri-Cities to keep affiliated baseball here for years to come.”

Major League Baseball had re-organized minor league baseball this off-season Baseball America had talked recently that some minor league teams were hesitant to agree with the contract MLB teams had sent out.

But when it was all said and done, all 120 minor-league organization’s invited by MLB teams to become partners signed the contracts. Roughly 40 other minor-league teams around the country lost their affiliations in the cutback.

Miles said that the Dust Devils had received the contract in mid-January and had 30 days to look at it and sign it.

“The deadline was Feb. 10, and we signed it the Friday before,” said Miles.

In years past, minor-league teams had two-year affiliation deals with MLB teams.

“But they’ve been talking about longer deals from the get-go,” said Miles.

So what’s next?

A 2021 schedule could be out possibly by next week.

“Major League Baseball is now in charge of creating a schedule,” Miles said.

In a normal year, the Dust Devils — as part of the new High-A West league — would play 132 games, 66 of them at home, and they would start the season in April.

Compare that to the short-season of the old Northwest League (that league name goes away now) of 76 games, 38 at home.

But this year MLB will only start spring training with major leaguers and Triple-A ball players. After that group breaks camp, then the lower-level minor leaguers come to camp in an effort to get some social distancing during this pandemic.

Because of that, the High-A West season won’t start until sometime in May.

The new league lineup “is two levels higher than what we’ve had here before,” said Miles. “That’s really significant.”

There have been many players that come through the Tri-Cities, and just a few years later those same players are with an MLB team.

“Take Kyle Lewis, for example,” said Miles. “Two years ago he was with Everett, playing center field against us. This past season, he was the American League Rookie of the Year with Seattle.

”There are still a lot of unanswered questions, such as how many — if any — fans will be allowed into Gesa Stadium for the games.

Considering that at one time — December 2019 — the Dust Devils were one of those minor-league teams on MLB’s chopping block – it’s been a tense and wild ride for Miles and his staff.

“It’s been a big rollercoaster ride, no doubt,” he said. “But we’re just thrilled to come out of the rollercoaster ride with an affiliation. We’ve had a lot of support from the fans, the community and the city of Pasco. We’re looking forward to working with the Angels.”

• The High-A West lineup will have, besides Tri-City, Everett (Mariners affiliation), Eugene (Giants), Hillsboro (Diamondbacks), Spokane (Rockies), and Vancouver (Blue Jays).

• The other two former Northwest League teams on the outs — the Boise Hawks and the Salem-Keizer Volcanoes — will still play, but in other leagues.

Boise moves into the independent Pioneer League, while Salem-Keizer has created a four-team Mavericks Independent League, with all games played at Volcanoes Stadium. Salem-Keizer has already announced the team is changing its named to the Salem Senators.

Zamora at Daytona

Kennewick’s Brittney Zamora had a rough start in Saturday’s Lucas Oil 200 driven by General Tire ARCA Menards Series season opener at Daytona International Speedway.

Just a couple of laps in, Zamora’s No. 30 Ford Fusion car owned Rette Jones Racing (RJR) started having high water temperatures.

It forced Zamora to pit, and in her haste to get to her stall, she was penalized for speeding on pit row, saddling her with an extra lap.

She could never recover from the car issues and the car was parked in the garage soon after.

Officially, Zamora got 7 laps in during the 82-lap race.

It was a bittersweet day for the Kennewick 21-year-old, who had signed with RJR on Feb. 6 and was getting her first chance to race on NASCAR’s most prestigious race track, in one of the under cards for the NASCAR Cup Series.

Zamora’s car — the chassis, at least — was the former car of Cup race driver Sterling Marlin, who drove it from 2000-05. That made the chassis just six months younger than Zamora is.

On Friday, she spent 23 laps in the car during practice running around Daytona, with only one other driver putting in more practice laps.

In qualifying Saturday morning, Zamora finished 19th out of 34 in the grid.

College baseball

Need a reason to follow the Lewis-Clark State College baseball team this year?

How about three former Kennewick Lions on the roster: redshirt senior Matt Driver is a right-handed pitcher and a transfer from Yakima Valley Community College; Dillon Plew is also a redshirt senior transfer from Washington State University and can play a number of infield positions; and sophomore Trent Sellers, another WSU transfer who is both a right-handed pitcher and can play the outfield.

The Warriors opened the season last week down in California and Arizona, and are off to a 5-1 start through Tuesday night’s game.

Plew — who was drafted by the Houston Astros in the last round of the MLB Draft in 2019 — has especially been on fire.

In a 12-2 win over San Diego Christian on Feb. 6, Plew had a home run, a double and 5 RBIs.

Two nights later in an 11-4 win at Arizona Christian, Plew went 3-for-5, scored three runs, had two home runs and 5 RBIs.