BEND, ORE. — After coming closer sooner than anyone expected, the Kitsap BlueJackets’ playoff hopes have come to a bitter end.
Needing to win outright, the BlueJackets nearly pulled off the feat, taking yet another series in Bend, Ore. against the Elks. But after winning 6-2 and 5-2 on Monday and Tuesday, one bad inning kept the Jackets from sweeping Wednesday, as Bend scored eight runs in the second inning to secure an 11-8 win. While the loss eliminated Kitsap from playoff contention, the Jackets still have just one series loss since the All-Star break and still hold the West Coast Collegiate Baseball League’s best record since the break at 13-6.
Aloha, Wenatchee and Bend remain in the battle for the league’s No. 2 spot to Spokane. The league’s top two teams play for the championship.
With just three games to go, and with Wenatchee and Aloha playing each other, Kitsap can merely play spoiler to Bend in the final home series of the season, which began last night and continues today at 7 p.m. Tomorrow’s game, the final contest of the 2006 campaign, begins at 1 p.m.
Errors doomed the BlueJackets during the second inning Wednesday, a frame that saw Bend rough up starter Kyle Cline.
After building a 3-0 lead at the end of the first, Kitsap seemed en route to a sweep when the trouble began.
One costly error. Four wild pitches. Eight hits. That was the recipe that doomed the Jackets.
After Cline was relieved after just 1-1/3 innings, having allowed seven runs (four earned), reliever Joe Hagen entered, lasting only an out while throwing three wild pitches. Aaron Bronson came on and threw another wild pitch before ending the inning that ended Kitsap’s hopes.
Kitsap scored two in the ninth but simply couldn’t come all the way back.
Kevin Corrigan had a strong day at the plate, stroking his second homer of the season.
Kitsap coach Matt Acker was unavailable for comment at press time.
The bat explained
One of the key shifts in momentum that cost Kitsap a series win against Aloha, and some valuable momentum, was a call in the second game regarding an Aloha bat on July 29.
In the bottom of the third inning of a 2-2 tie, Aloha had a man on second with one out. Knight Shawn Wayt slapped a single that moved Jared Prince over to third. Acker asked that the bat be reviewed, as athletic tape was wrapped around the base of the bat when it meets the knob. Aloha’s Mike Gilbert retrieved the bat from the dugout and removed the tape. The bat was initially ruled illegal after home plate ump Todd Ellis said the bat had been altered due to nearly a third of the knob missing. Aloha manager Dave Stebbins filed an immediate protest, which got to league commissioner Jim Dietz before midnight that day. Dietz was in Alaska at the time. After Sunday morning phone interviews with Ellis and Dave Perez, the supervisor of umpires, and after reviewing photos of the bat, Dietz determined that Ellis had ruled incorrectly per American League rules, league president Tony Larsen, who also owns the Bellingham Bells, said Wednesday.
Although the bat was damaged, the report from Ellis to Perez stated while the knob was damaged, it in no way affected the flight of the ball off the bat.
In the game Saturday, Kitsap rallied as Wayt was called out and Prince returned to second following the illegal bat call. Kitsap went on to score five runs the next inning.
Since the call was made erroneously, the game was restarted on Sunday morning in the same scenario: with Wayt at the plate and Prince on second and the game tied 2-2. Kitsap, which won the canceled game 9-5, went on to lose the replay 9-8 in 15 innings. Kitsap has not filed an official appeal of the decision, Larsen said.
