[DD Martin]

Continuing with week 1

After a successful opening game of the season for the Tridents, they continued on with their week visiting the north and south of the I-5 PNW corridor.

Sea - LF Collins, 2B Marquez, LF Carmona, 1B Reed, RF McDonald, 3B Pena, SS Weber, C Pardo, P Wynns
Van - RF Seaton, CF McBride, 2B Rubio, C Bostic, LF Gargano, 1B Weigel, 3B Trevino, SS Martinez, P Sherwood

Game 2 - Seattle 3 @ Vancouver 2
Seattle SP Mike Wynns scattered 11 singles in going 8.1IP to pick up the win. Kyle Gorman threw 4 pitches for 2 outs to pick up his 2nd save. CF Joe Collins scored the go-ahead run in the top of the 3rd inning on a Marquez RBI-single. Marquez then scored on a groundout by 1B Rob Reed to make it 3-1.
P M Wynns 8.1 IP 11H, 2R, 1BB 0 K (1-0), CF Collins 2-3 DB, BB 2SB 2RS, LF Carmona 3-4 DB RBI
A-15,245 T - 2:43
POTG P Chris Sherwood Van

Series with Portland
Seattle Tridents (2-0) @ Portland Mavericks (1-2) (Multinomah County Park seats 23,600)

Projected Pitching Matchups
Jimmy Martin vs Andres Luna
Ryan Conner vs Jose Paredes
Wes Sommerville (1-0 1.12 ERA) vs Cesar Linan (0-1 3.86 ERA)
Mike Wynns (1-0 2.16 ERA) vs Willie Garcia (0-1 6.00 ERA)

The Tridents head to the Southern end of the I-5 corridor and go south of the Washington border in Portland to play the Mavericks. This is expected to be a fierce rivalry in the coming years as both fan bases tend to take shots at the other. It’s always been that way so expect raucous crowds just like they get in college football between these two fan bases.

Portland went 1-2 at home against the San Francisco Quakes to open the season. Portland’s best players are C Rafael Gonzales (23), SP Cesar Linan (28) and RF Adam Reese (34).

Game #1 (3)
Lineups
Sea - LF Collins, 2B Marquez, 1B Reed, 3B Pena, LF Carmona, RF McDonald, C Pardo, SS Weber P Martin
Por - LF Resendez, 2B Klaasen, 1B Vercesi, RF Reese, C Gonzales, 3B Palmere, SS Proctor, CF Gilles, P Luna

Mavericks scored a run in the bottom of the 9th with a walk off single by CF James Gilles of RP James Smith (0-1). For some interesting reason Manager Brian Wilde decided to pinch hit for Joe Collins with Danny Rivera. Now Rivera did single to start off the inning but one would have thought that perhaps you might want to give Collins who is hitting 545 the opportunity with his speed. Maybe it was punishment for Collins getting caught stealing earlier in the game. Collins is a lefty and was going against a lefty reliever, but one would think…..who am I to judge. We tasted defeat for the first time (likely of many) Mavericks 4-3 LF Collins 2-3, 2B Marquez 1-2 2BB RBI, SP J Martin* 7IP 8H 3R 5BB 5K’s WP

A - 13,107 T - 3:12
POTG Jimmy Martin Seattle

Game #2 (4)
Lineups
Sea - LF Collins, 2B Marquez, 1B Reed, 3B Pena, LF Carmona, RF McDonald, C Pardo, SS Weber, SP Conner
Por - LF Resendez, 2B Klaasen, 1B Vercesi, RF Reese, 3B Palmere, C Gonzales, CF Gilles, SS Proctor, P Paredes

SP Ryan Conner pitched a heck of a game through 8 innings but was being outduelled. We are down 2-0 heading into the top of the 9th. Things looked pretty bleak as we had only managed off Mavericks SP Jose Paredes through the first 8 innings. But then Paredes hit PH Dan Rivera to lead off the 9th. Then he struck out Henderson who had come on in the previous at-bat for Collins (again) but threw a wild pitch to move Rivera to 2B. Chris Benoit hit a pinch hit single to move Rivera to 3rd. Then 1B Rob Reed hit a 1-1 pitch into the LF stands for a 3-run home run and the Portland crowd sat stunned. This was also the first home run ever hit by a Seattle player!! CL Kyle Gorman came on and while hitting a batter pitched a scoreless 9th for his 3rd save in as many chances. Tridents win 3-2
SP R Connor* 8IP 5H 2R 1BB 5K, 1B Reed 1-4 HR 3 RBI

A - 16,538 T 2:31
POTG - Ryan Conner Seattle
My vote would have been Reed for the dramatic game winning 3-run home run

Game 3 (5)
Lineups
Sea - LF Collins, 2B Marquez, LF Carmona, 1B Reed, RF McDonald, 3B Pena, SS Weber, C Pardo, P Somerville
Por - LF Resendez, SS Proctor, 1B Vercesi, 2B Reese, 3B Palmere, RF Pakpahan, CF Gilles, C Hembree, P Linan

This was a PNW special as it was a cloudy, drizzly sort of cold evening. And the rain would eventually get us. We managed to scrap together a 3 run rally in the 4th to take a 3-2 on 1B Reed’s 2-run single. But SP Wes Somerville wasn’t sharp at all, hopefully it's just the weather and not that he is only 18 years old. Somerville didn’t get out of the 5th giving up 6 runs. Then the rain came and after not scoring in the top of the 7th, the umpire called the game…..Mavericks 6-3
1B Reed 1-3 2 RBI RS

A - 17,499 T - 2:49
POTG - P Cesar Linan Portland
Special Note - Game called in the middle of the 7th inning

Game 4 (6)
Lineups
Sea - LF Collins, 2B Marquez, LF Carmona, 1B Reed, 3B Pena, RF McDonald, SS Weber, C Salazar SP Wynns
Por - LF Resendez, 2B Klaasen, 1B Vercesi, RF Reese, 3B palmere, C Gonzales, CF Pakpahan, SS B Garcia SP W Garcia

Tridents SP Mike Wynns had pitched well through 6 innings but his team was down 2-1, then the bats broke out. In the top of the 7th RF McDonald hit a 1-out double, and then SS Weber followed with a triple scoring McDonald. C Manny Salazar saw his first action of the season and grounded an RBI- single through the hole for to score Weber. With 2 outs and LF Collins battling, Salazar took off and was easily gunned down at 2B for the final out (might have to talk to manager Wilde about his running…). We added 4 insurance runs in the top of the 9th to seal the victory 7-2 and end the first week of the season with a winning record (4-2).
SP Wynns *IP 5H 2R 1BB 5K (W 2-0), 2B Marquez 2-4 DB, 2RBI, R, SS Weber 2-4 TRP, 2R RBI

A - 17,092 T 2:58
POTG - Mike Wynns Seattle

Summary - So a 4-2 on the road to start off our NBA journey, but that was just good enough for 2nd place as San Francisco took 3 out of 4 against Vancouver (not off to a 95 win start) to take the division lead after the first week at 5-2.

Optimistically we had 2 solid starts from SP Mike Wynns and CL Kyle Gorman was a perfect 3-3 in save opportunities. While we had only hit 1 home run during the first week, we had 11 stolen bases, led by LF Joe Collins 7. 1B Rob Reed was only hitting 182 (4-22) with 1 home run, but boy did he make those hits count. With RISP he was 4-11 with that home run and an NBA leading 10 RBI’s. So far he has been pretty clutch.

Minor League Notes - Things weren’t looking so good for our minor league system. The AAA Tacoma Tugs and AA El Paso Borderites were both still looking for their 1st wins of the season (both 0-6) Class A Fresno Fire managed to go 3-3. The two key players we had our eyes on were both in Tacoma with 1B Marco Diaz (20) hitting 375/444/861 but not much to show for it with just 1 extra base hit (DB) and 1 run scored and 1 RBI. The other player we are closely watching is 2B Kurt Regan who has started the season hitting 375/464/923 with 2 doubles, 2 RBI’s and 2 runs scored. Regan has started all 6 games at SS as we look to see if he can handle that position in the future.

Tacoma has scored just 13 runs in its first 6 games (2.1 rpg) and has a bullpen that looks like a dumpster fire with a 6.75 ERA.