On Thursday night, the Alaska Goldpanners had an opportunity to nab another walk-off win and take a commanding 2-0 lead in their series against the Bercovich Honors. They came up short, however, despite scoring the final five runs of the game.
The 8-6 loss, which dropped the ‘Panners to 17-10-2 on the season, marks four defeats in their past five games dating back to last week’s series against the Sawtooth Sockeyes in which Alaska won the first two games and lost the final three.
The Goldpanners saw strong performances at the plate Thursday from Jacob Badawi (3-of-4 with a walk), Jesse Espinoza (3-of-5 with an RBI double and a walk) and Holt Williams (3-of-4 with two RBIs and a hit-by-pitch) as the team racked up at least a dozen hits. But they fell in too deep of a hole early in the game. Mason Robertson started the game for the ‘Panners who, per usual at home, batted second.
The Honors moved two runners into scoring position in the top of the first inning after a pair of stolen bases. However, the Goldpanners got out of trouble when shortstop Griffin Harrison came around to catch a pop-up on the outer edge of the infield for the third out.
Both pitchers and their defenses made relatively quick work of the opposing batters in their next two trips to the mound.
The Honors scored the first run of the game, and gained their first lead of the series, in the top of the third inning. With a teammate in scoring position after a stolen base, an Honor batter drove in a go-ahead score with an RBI triple. He scored, for a 2-0 lead, on a groundout from another teammate.
The ‘Panners cut into that lead when they went up to bat in the third inning. However, the Honors opened the fourth inning with a solo home run to go back ahead by a pair of runs, and they found themselves with two more runners in scoring position with no outs just minutes later. That converted into two runs, as Robertson was pulled midway through the inning.
A Bercovich batter then smacked a three-run homer to cement a seismic fourth stanza and put the Honors up 8-1 a day after they trailed 13-1 in their Wednesday loss to the Goldpanners.
“I actually thought our starter pitched well,” Goldpanners acting field manager Carlos Gonzales said postgame. “But we had two big errors in that (fourth) inning that ended up leading to five runs, and that really put us in the hole. And we had to fight back, and we did fight back right after that. But I just think that we were off balance at the plate, and we’ve got to get going quick or our pitchers are going to start losing.”
The Goldpanners doubled their run count in the fourth inning when an RBI double from Williams plated Badawi, but they still had a sizable deficit near the game’s midpoint.
“[Their pitchers] had better stuff today than we thought we got yesterday,” Gonzales, who was ejected for arguing a call, said. “So I thought we came in a little flat today thinking we were going to get 80 miles per hour, and today they threw a guy that was almost 90.”
Honors batters went three up, three down in the fifth, which was Matt Novis’ first full inning on the mound. He faced just four batters in the sixth inning before his teammate, Espinoza, bounced a ball just inside the left field line for an RBI double that allowed Badawi to score from first base. Williams then helped Espinoza home with an RBI single and prompted a pitching change.
Furthering their sixth-inning success, the ‘Panners loaded the bases, and Williams scored after an RBI from Grant Scholzen. Alex Garcia added a fourth run in the inning when the opposing pitcher overthrew a pickoff.
David Butler took over on the bump in the top of the seventh inning and experienced success similar to Novis, going three up, three down with a troika of groundouts and then quickly retiring three batters again in the eighth.
The ‘Panners loaded the bases with two outs in the bottom of the seventh inning but left without any additional runs after a pop-up. They found less success in the penultimate period.
Wade Lawson was the fourth and final pitcher of the night for the hosts and he also retired his first three batters. That gave the Goldpanners a chance at a walk-off win.
Even as Badawi and Espinoza got on base with one out, the ‘Panners couldn’t claw back. Gonzales still sees reason for optimism as the team heads into its final two weeks of the season.
“I think this team can hit a little bit,” Gonzales said. “And if our pitching keeps us in the game, I think we’re gonna be okay this whole series. We kind of lined it up for the rest of this series to be good. We have two more pitchers coming in tomorrow from the States.”
The Goldpanners and Honors will play the third of five games in the series on Friday, July 19 at 7 p.m.
