Sac fly in bottom of ninth lifts Canadians over Indians

VANCOUVER, B.C. – Luis De Los Santos hit a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the ninth inning and the Vancouver Canadians outrallied the Spokane Indians for a 5-4 victory Sunday afternoon in Northwest League baseball action.

The Indians (10-7) appeared headed for their 11th victory of the season after scoring three runs in the top of the eighth inning to take a 4-1 lead.

Kennen Irizarry led off with a single and moved to third on a throwing error by Vancouver pitcher Gage Burland on Kellen Strahm’s sacrifice bunt. Cristian Inoa followed with an RBI single that left baserunner’s at the corners with nobody out. Burland walked Tanner Gardner intentionally to load the bases and Obie Ricumstrict followed with a sacrifice fly to put Spokane up 3-1. Jonah McReynolds was hit by a pitch to reload the bases and Starling Joseph capped the rally with a run-scoring groundout.

But the Canadians (5-12) rallied right back and scored three runs – one earned – off Jeifry Nunez who breezed through the sixth and seventh innings before running into trouble in the eighth.

Cameron Eden singled and Tanner Morris walked to start the Vancouver eighth. With one out, Yorman Rodriguez singled in a run to make it 4-2, ending Nunez’s night. Werner Leal followed and walked Trevor Schwecke to load the bases. Leal induced a popup for the second out, but Ryan Sloniger drilled a two-run single to knot the score at 4. The inning ended when Schwecke was hit by a batted ball on a Davis Schneider single.

The Canadians used a hit batter, single, walk and De Los Santos’ sac fly to push the winning run across. It was the first earned run given up by Leal this season in 9 2/3 innings of work.