Pippins Win It Walking Away Against Sweets

Saturday night, the Pippins had a ninth-inning rally fall just short to the Walla Walla Sweets. Sunday, they made yet another late rally and did enough to prevail by a score of 6-4 over the Sweets at The Orchard in State Fair Park.

For the first six innings, the Pippins (6-2) had trouble mustering much at the plate against Sweets’ starter Trevin Haseltine and reliever Chris Tate. Yakima Valley was held scoreless and collected just one hit over the first six frames, but made a furious rally towards the end to get back in the game.

Trailing 3-0 entering the bottom of the seventh, the Pippins scored twice on an RBI double from Josh Nashed and a RBI single from Alex Guenette, who made his season debut with Yakima Valley.

Walla Walla (4-4) countered with a solo homer off the bat of Juan Gamez on the first pitch of the 8^th, but the Pippins had another counter punch stored up. With the bases loaded and one out, Dayton Provost launched a two-run double to left field to tie the game at 4.

In the ninth, the Sweets got a runner to third base with one out, but a suicide squeeze attempt failed and the Pippins got to the bottom of the ninth in a 4-4 tie. After the first two hitters were retired by Walla Walla reliever Easton Lucas, Branson Trube drew a walk, and moved to third on an errant pickoff throw by Lucas.

That brought up Reid Martinez, who was 0-4 leading up to his at-bat in the ninth inning. On a 3-2 pitch, Martinez hit a walk-off home run just inside the foul pole down the right field line to finish the comeback and even the series at one game apiece. Yakima Valley finished with six runs on six hits over the final three innings after accumulating no runs on one hit through the first six frames.

The win ends a two-game losing streak for the Pippins and sets up a rubber match against the Sweets Monday night at 7:05 pm. It’s Tough Enough to Wear Pink night at The Orchard, as the Pippins will don pink jerseys, hats and bats in support of breast cancer awareness. Game-used items will be auctioned off after the game to benefit cancer programs in the Yakima Valley. The event is put on in partnership with Yakima Valley Memorial Hospital.

Listen in on 1460 ESPN Yakima starting at 6:55 p.m.