Victoria can't handle the onion

Alex Real scoops another one out of the dirt

On a beautiful night for baseball, the HarbourCats made it easy on the visiting Walla Walla Sweets, making four errors and several other notable gaffes in a 6-1 loss. Full credit to the Sweets though, as they hammered out 12 hits and look to be a pretty solid baseball team. Starting Sweets pitcher Sean Silva gave up only one earned run in six and two thirds innings, striking out four and walking three while lights out closer Sean-Luke Brija kept his streak of no earned runs this year in collecting the save.

But the story was really the four errors on the scoreboard - two throwing, one tossing and one catching - and the miscues that did not show up there. Two Victoria runners were picked off by the crafty left-handed Walla Walla hurlers, and on a dropped skyball in the infield, Chris Lewis made like little league and just kept on running, only to be thrown out at second. Add to that a perfect bullet throw from the outfield that gunned down Lewis at the plate to negate what would have been Victoria's first run and you have your story.

On the 'Cats side of the hill, starter Ty Provencher pitched pretty well - again, solely from the stretch - in only giving up six hits while striking out seven and walking one in eight innings of work. Only problem was that two of those hits were home runs - one a monster shot in the fourth by John Skrbec - and accounted for his three earned runs. Relievers Joe Record and Logan Lombana, not so much. Their combined inning of work looked like this - six hits, three runs and no strikeouts or walks.

On the positive side, Victoria did not give up any runs in the first inning this time and they also had nine hits against a very good set of pitchers. I also thought Alex Real had a great defensive game at first base, making an outstanding diving catch, scooping balls out of the dirt and knocking down several other hard hit balls, but just not having any luck in turning them into outs. And again, starting pitching was pretty solid and gave the team a chance to win so there is definitely room for optimism heading into the next two games against Walla Walla.

Still, Walla Walla strikes me as a pretty tight unit and it will be tough for the 'Cats to get a game from  these guys. The 'Cats will need to keep up the good starting pitching, get solid relief and cut down on the errors/gaffes.

Everybody's favourite onion

As an aside, I love the Walla Walla uniforms - duds with a sense of humour. The front of the jersey has the word Walla on it with a "2" just above it. And to top it off, they have a picture of everybody's favourite onion, Sweet Lou, on the front of their red caps. Nice touch!

With amazing weather predicted for the next two games, it is an excellent opportunity to come down and support the lads. There were over 1,400 fans there today which helped keep Victoria in the league lead for attendance, but a few more wouldn't hurt.