Pirates' bats sizzle in Wenatchee

Pirates 11 AppleSox 9

WENATCHEE — This year's West Coast Collegiate Baseball League season hasn't been one for offensive fireworks.

No one in attendance Tuesday night at Wenatchee's Paul Thomas Field would've guessed it.

The visiting Moses Lake Pirates and the host AppleSox combined for 20 runs in a wild, back-and-forth affair that ended with Moses Lake earning an 11-9 victory and widening its lead in the WCCBL West Division to five games over Wenatchee.

Moses Lake head coach Gabe Boruff explained after the game that during the Pirates' recent six-game road trip to Corvallis and Bend, about 75 percent of the players came down with a stomach flu virus. That left them sluggish and vulnerable during a three-game sweep at Bend and it seemed to carry over into the early part of Tuesday's contest.

"I don't like to make excuses and I don't let the team make excuses," Boruff added. "We take a day off and come up here and all of a sudden we're down 5-0. I've got no concentration in the dugout. Everybody's like, 'Oh, here we go, we're down again.' We're not a team like that."

Wenatchee (10-12) struck quickly against Pirate starter Michael Ratigan, putting their first two runners on in the first inning. Ryan Davis followed with a three-run home run over the wall in right field, and a subsequent sacrifice fly put the AppleSox up 4-0. Another run in the third made it 5-0.

Down 5-1 in the fifth, Moses Lake's offense flipped the switch. The Pirates loaded the bases, and designated hitter Kevin Coddington cleared them with one swing, a solid drive to the gap in right-center for a double that brought Moses Lake within a run.

"Really I was just trying to drive the ball into the outfield and do my job," Coddington said of his approach during the at-bat. "At the time, we were down 5-1 and we just needed to get something going and a sac fly would do it."

Moses Lake scored twice more in the frame to lead 6-5, but the Apple Sox responded in their half, ending Ratigan's night after 4 1/3 innings. Wenatchee plated four runs in the bottom of the fifth and, once again, the Pirates found themselves in a troublesome position, trailing 9-6.

The Pirates counter-punched in the sixth, getting two runs to draw within 9-8 and knocking out Wenatchee starter Jeremy Stumetz in the process. Coddington said because the team was unfamiliar with Stumetz's style, it took a while to draw a bead on him.

"You strive as always to just take a good approach," Coddington said. "I know personally I did a horrible job in the first few innings, and as a team we did a better job later in the game."

Moses Lake, which ended the night with 14 hits, scored three times in the seventh to grab the lead, which Daniel Wolford protected with two scoreless innings of relief.

"We got a great win tonight and I tip my hat to my offense," Boruff said. "I think our offense was the only reason we won tonight."

The Pirates (15-7) snapped their three-game losing skid, a slide Boruff attributed to not being mentally stable from day to day. While winning the opener over Wenatchee now puts the pressure on the AppleSox to avoid falling further behind in the division race, Boruff isn't focusing on that in his pre-game chats.

"If you tell them, 'These guys are on our tails, you've got to beat them,' they're gonna play tight," he said. "You gotta play the same every day, go with your own game plan."

The series shifts to Larson Field tonight at 7:30 p.m. A good crowd should be on hand to watch Warden High School graduate and College World Series Most Outstanding Player Jorge Reyes make his season debut on the mound for the Pirates.

"We're excited to see him throw, like everyone else," Boruff said of Reyes. "He did have a long spring, so his pitch count's going to be low and we don't know how many games he's going to start for us. That really depends on what coach (Pat) Casey at Oregon State wants."