Minor league playoffs: Vancouver advances, Dunedin to play Game 3

Four Jays affiliates were originally scheduled to play postseason games last night, but both New Hampshire and Lansing had the first games of their respective series rained out.

That left Vancouver and Dunedin, and the Canadians hung on for the win to advance to the Northwest League Championship, while Dunedin lost a close one and will play a deciding game 3 tonight.

Vancouver wins series 2-1 & advances to Northwest League Championship

Vancouver Canadians 5, Eugene Emeralds 4 (WP: Permison)

Sparked by a three-run first, the C’s scored all of their runs by the end of the third inning and managed to hold on for a 5-4 win over Eugene last night. Vancouver will now face the Tri-City Dust Devils in a best of three series for the Northwest League Championship starting tomorrow night.

Hitting:

Seven of the C’s starting nine had hits in this one, and Roan Salas got them on the board with an RBI single in the first. Balbino Fuenmayor followed with a two-run single to put the C’s up 3-0, and Kevin Pillar and Pierce Rankin smacked RBI doubles in the next two innings to give the C’s a 5-0 edge.

Pitching:

Aaron Sanchez did walk four, but was dominant otherwise in his postseason start. He struck out eight batters in 4.2 shutout innings, and he held the Emeralds to just one hit.

Philip Brua gave up Eugene’s first two runs on three hits in 1.2 innings of work, Bryan Longpre allowed one run on two hits in two thirds of an inning, and Drew Permison came in to pitch a 1-2-3 eighth.

Permison made the game very interesting when he came back out for the ninth, though. After walking the first two batters he faced, he gave up a single to load the bases with nobody out. After getting a ground out that scored a run to make it a 5-4 nail-biter and put the tying run on second base, Permison retired the next two batters he faced to give Vancouver the thrilling victory.

Series tied 1-1 | Game 3 tonight @ Daytona

Daytona Cubs 3, Dunedin Blue Jays 1 (LP: Tepera)

Great pitching was the theme of this game, as Daytona’s starter Jeffry Antigua got the best of the D-Jays to give his team the win and force a decisive, tie-breaking game 3 tonight in Daytona.

Hitting:

Ryan Goins had Dunedin’s only extra-base hit and RBI, Brad McElroy was hit by a pitch to lead off the game and made the most of an eighth inning walk by stealing second base, and Jon Talley and Brad Glenn both hit singles.

Pitching:

Dunedin starter Ryan Tepera was saddled with the loss despite pitching well, as he held the Cubs to three earned runs on just five hits in 6.2 strong innings. He walked two, struck out four, and gave up a solo home run in the sixth inning. Tepera never gave up more than one run in an inning, Daytona scored their other two runs on only a single and a sacrifice fly.

After Tepera induced a double play in the seventh, Matt Wright came on in relief to finish the game and struck out three of the four batters he faced.

-JM

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