By PAUL DELANEY
Staff Reporter
It's a long season for the Spokane Blue Devils packed into a short window. And despite their admitted stumbles early with a 2-4 record in Spokane AAA American Legion play, and a 6-10 overall mark, manager Tony Byrne is not in a panic.
“We are off to a pretty slow start,” Byrne said. “We have shown definite signs of being a good team.”
That might not have been more evident than this past weekend's Hagert Tournament in Selah, Wash. After losing six of seven and eight of nine outings in a week from June 5-11, the Blue Devils have won three of their last four contests, including a split in games this past weekend in Yakima. The champ, Yakima Valley Pepsi Pak, like the Blue Devils, each finished 2-2 with the title determined by run differential.
Spokane fell 6-5 to the Pak and 5-4 to the Yakima Beetles on Saturday before coming back to post an 8-5 win over the Beetles and 7-6 victory over Pepsi Pak Sunday. The tournament was seen as a prelude to the state tournament later in July in Selah.
“We were up 5-0 after 2 innings and didn't score the rest of the way,” Byrne said of the loss to Pepsi Pak. “They had a pretty good guy on the mound to finish.” Yakima scored three runs in the bottom of the fifth to conclude the rally. “We were sloppy offensively and defensively,” Byrne said to describe the loss to the Beetles.
Things got on track Sunday, paced in part by Cheney's Sean Scholer's home run in the Blue Devils' win over the Beetles. Byrne didn't have specific stats off the top of his head he said, but he singled out Parker Franklin who “has had some big hits for us.”
“We had been in a funk,” Byrne said. “When we scored three in the fifth inning it seemed to give the kids some confidence and created some momentum.” That aided the Blue Devils down the stretch, Byrne said.
Byrne said his team's goal has been trying to focus and play a complete game. “We were good in the last three innings of the first game and the first three or four of this game (the 7-6 win). “We are getting close to doing that, beating Yakima Valley is a good win for this team.”
In earning a split in the return to Spokane AAA play on Monday night at A.K. Jackson Field – beating the N.E. 49ers 6-0 in the opener before falling 10-6 to the same team the evening seemed to be the tale of two opposite defensive performances.
“We win the first game 6-0, played good defensively and were efficient on offense,” Byrne said. “In the second game we committed five errors and lost.”
Turning back the calendar to last week when the Blue Devils faced the Spokane Bandits in four straight games, going 1-3 in the process, Byrne pointed to the performances of Nick Pacheco who hit a home run Wednesday and Scholer who got the win, striking out four.
The Blue Devils take part in the Palouse Summer Series starting Friday when they face Lewiston, Idaho in a 6 p.m. game at Lewis Clark State College. They travel to Pullman for games Saturday against the Spokane Crew (10 a.m.) and the Washington Wave (12:45) at WSU.
Paul Delaney can be reached at [email protected].
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