BELLINGHAM 6
VICTORIA 2
Looking to salvage the last game of a key series, the Victoria HarbourCats will instead slink into the West Coast League all-star break with a third straight loss to the West Division-leading Bellingham Bells on Saturday afternoon.
On a hot, sunny day at Sports Traders Diamond at Royal Athletic Park, the HarbourCats dropped a 6-2 decision to the team they were hoping to chase down. Instead, they are now seven games behind with just 18 to go as Victoria tries to secure its first playoff spot in three years in the West Coast League.
Six of those 18 games will be in Bellingham, with three starting Tuesday after the Monday鈥檚 all-star affair.
Overall, in six three-game series at home, the HarbourCats have won just two.
鈥淣o, not the home stand we wanted at all. Bellingham is a good club. We needed to scratch out at least one of those first two in the series,鈥� said dejected HarbourCats head coach Graig Merritt. 鈥淭oday, I thought we were in it until the eighth inning.
鈥淲e know we can play with these guys, but we made a lot of mistakes. It shows our youth and their experience. They don鈥檛 make those mistakes. They made those mistakes three years ago, when they were the age of the kids we have.鈥�
There were actually plenty of mistakes to go around over the three games.
The HarbourCats lost 6-5 on Friday after an 8-7 defeat on Thursday. Victoria had the bases loaded late in both of those setbacks, but failed to cash in runners.
They weren鈥檛 exactly clean outings, either, with 23 walks in the first two games and 12 wild pitches between the two sides. Each team had two errors in the series opener and Victoria recorded the only error on Friday, a costly one that led to two runs. Bellingham added two more on Saturday.
Both teams stranded 22 runners each over the first two games and they added nine apiece on Saturday.
The sloppiness began in the first inning with a pair of walks from Victoria starting pitcher Henry Omana, who then advanced the runners on a wild pitch.
A sacrifice fly from Bronson Larsen scored the opening run for the Bells.
Victoria tied it in the second as Ben Polshuk led off with a single and scored on a ground ball. But Dustin Breshears, who had a 3-for-5 night on Friday, crushed an Omana offering over the left-field fence in the third for a solo homer.
Aaron Stroosma then took an Omana pitch even deeper over the left-field fence in the fifth.
After a two-base error by Bells鈥� starting pitcher Reagan Todd allowed Nick Meyer to move from first to third in the bottom of the fifth, Meyer trotted home on a wild pitch to cut it to 3-2.
A two-run double by Patrick McGrath in the eighth made it 5-2 and Bellingham added one more in the ninth for good measure to improve to 24-12 while the 鈥機ats slip to 17-19.
鈥淒efinitely not the results we wanted. We were in every single game, but that鈥檚 the way baseball is sometimes,鈥� said Polshuk, who was 2-for-2 with two walks at the plate and looking forward to the all-star break, although Victoria is in Nanaimo today for a scrimmage.
鈥淚t鈥檒l be good to rest up and then come out firing.鈥�
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