Back-and-Forth Battle Ends with Loss to Yakima Valley
(Photo by Isaac Abrego)
By Addison Cerezo
YAKIMA — Despite scoring 12 runs across seven innings, the Springfield Drifters (21-27, 18-21) dropped the series finale 13-12 to the Yakima Valley Pippins (21-28, 19-21) in one of the most chaotic games of the West Coast League season on Thursday night at Yakima County Stadium.
With several lead changes and five ties throughout the contest, a bases-loaded walk by the Pippins in the ninth salvaged the series for Yakima Valley to end the 3-hour and 46-minute contest.
“When you score 12 runs on 15 hits, you should win most of these games,” head coach Jeff Lyle said after the game. “We just came up a little bit short on the strike-throwing tonight.”
Springfield wasted no time opening the scoring, as back-to-back walks by Nick Gimino and Hunter Meyer set the table for Preston Armstrong. With both runners in scoring position, Armstrong smacked a single to left field to score the pair and give the Drifters an early 2-0 lead for the third straight night.
After Yakima Valley matched the Drifters in the first, Springfield retook the lead in the second on a Chase Nye RBI groundout. The Pippins responded with a 3-spot in the bottom half of the inning to give the Drifters their first deficit of the series.
An offensive onslaught in the third inning gave the Drifters the lead once again, pushing the score to 7-5 after just 2½ innings. Matthew Bolinger reached on an RBI infield single to open the scoring before a double steal plated another run for the Drifters. Elliott Brown (3-4, 2B, SB) then singled to bring home Bolinger and give the Drifters the lead 6-5. Brown later came around to score on an RBI single by Chase Nye.
“The cohesiveness of this team is something that doesn’t always happen in the summer,” Lyle said when asked about the “fight-back” mentality of the Drifters. “But our guys are legitimately playing for the guy next to them.”
This kind of mentality has led to six straight series wins for Springfield, in a season that has seen a comeback in the standings like no other in Drifters history.
But the back-and-forth nature of the ballgame was nowhere near finished, as the two teams continued to score with every chance they got.
Kahaku Harrison and Nolan Miller both brought in runs in the fourth and fifth innings, respectively. But both runs merely tied the game, and the Drifters weren’t able to capitalize further in each inning as the score ballooned to 10-9 for the Pippins after five innings.
The one-run deficit didn’t hold, as the Drifters capitalized on a first-and-third double steal for the second time of the evening, tying the ballgame once more in the sixth.
A zero wasn’t put up in the box score until the bottom of the sixth inning, when lefty Owen Cheyne came in and worked around a pair of baserunners to hold the Pippins scoreless for the first time in the game.
“It gives us belief that we can go out and score, and they don’t,” Lyle said. “So, when you get those shutdown innings, it gives the next guy a lot of confidence that they can do the same and put up another zero.”
The Drifters' offense stagnated, while Yakima Valley kept landing blows. Two runs in the bottom of the seventh left the Drifters trailing 12-10.
And the score stayed that way until the ninth.
Aiden Gebhard led off the inning with a hit-by-pitch and stole second immediately after. Nye brought him home two pitches later, driving a double into the right field gap to cut the lead in half. Nye has finished the game 2-for-6 with a double and 3 RBI, improving his hitting to .279 with 10 RBI over his 12 games played to revitalize the Springfield offense.
“Since he’s been here, we’ve been very tough to beat,” Lyle said of Nye. “He’s one of the best table-setters in the business, and his versatility on defense is second to none.”
Three batters later, Nolan Miller brought Nye in with a little help from the Yakima Valley defense, as an easy fly ball found leather, then grass, marking the third Pippins error of the evening, knotting the score at 12.
The bottom of the ninth brought more drama. A groundout, hit by pitch, and a single marked the end of Owen Cheyne’s time on the mound, as Trey Thompson came in to replace him with runners at first and second.
Thompson recorded a quick out, but an infield single loaded the bases. With a 3-2 count to the next batter, Thompson’s payoff pitch missed just wide, sealing the Drifters’ fate to give Yakima Valley their 21st win of the season.
The Drifters are right back in action on Friday at Hamlin Sports Complex with a Cooper Mullens bobblehead giveaway! First pitch is at 6:35 p.m. Tickets can be bought on driftersbaseball.com, and the game can be streamed on the Drifters YouTube Channel or the WCL Live app.