Apr. 6—The start of the 2025 Northwest League season hasn't gone exactly as planned on the field for the Spokane Indians. Despite opening the season at Avista Stadium, the Indians were edged on opening day then blanked on two hits on Saturday.
Sunday's series finale against the Everett AquaSox — the High-A affiliate of the Seattle Mariners — brought a chance to salvage something out of the season-opening weekend.
The bats finally got going — at least in spurts — and the pitching was sublime. At the end, the Indians put one up in the win column.
Aidan Longwell and Jared Thomas hit home runs, providing for all of the Indians runs in a 3-1 win over the AquaSox on a spectacularly sunny afternoon at the ballpark.
Longwell hit a two-run shot in the fourth inning, and Thomas added a insurance homer in the eighth. Starter Albert Pacheco tossed five scoreless innings and Welinton Herrera struck out five in 1 2/3 innings for his first save of the season.
Two games don't quite constitute a losing streak, but it's always a relief to get the first win in the books.
"The win was awesome. Now we roll," Longwell said. "It's nice to get into this warm weather a bit."
The Indians (1-2) managed just six runs in the three-game set with Everett (2-1).
"We've been scraping to get runs across this week," Longwell said. "It's been a little tough for us. It was good to get some today and hopefully that gets things rolling for us."
Through the first four innings, Pacheco allowed one hit and one walk, with six strikeouts and five groundouts.
The hitters gave him something to work with in the bottom half of the fourth. Andy Perez drew a leadoff walk from Everett starter Evan Truitt, then Longwell hit the first Indians homer of the season, a long fly in front of the scoreboard in right centerfield.
"I saw (Truitt) really good on my first at-bat, and I had seen him once last year," Longwell said. "I saw it pretty good out of his hand there. I was pretty comfortable out there, just saw a fastball and got the head (of the bat) out and got it over the wall."
Skyler Messenger followed with a pop-fly double and went to third on a balk but was stranded there.
Pacheco put up one more 1-2-3 inning before his day was done. Over five shutout innings, the 22-year-old left-handed Dominican allowed one hit and one walk with one hit batter and seven strikeouts. He threw 45 of his 68 pitches for strikes and generated six groundouts while hitting 95 on the stadium radar gun.
"I tell these guys that fastball-changeup guys can go really far in the game if you can keep hitters off-balance, working hard in(side) and soft away, and vice versa," Indians pitching coach Blaine Beatty said. "(Pacheco) did a really nice job. Really good fastball today and he located to both sides of the plate. ...He executed the plan today to a T."
Everett got on the board in the sixth off reliever Hunter Mann. With one down Tai Peete's hard grounder bounced over Longwell at first and into the rightfield corner for a double. Peete went to third on a tag-up, then scored on a bounced throw by catcher Jesus Ordonez, who was trying to pick the runner off at third.
The AquaSox threatened again in the eighth. Reliever Davis Palermo struck out Anthony Donofrio to start the inning but issued back-to-back one-out walks. Indians manager Robinson Cancel went to the lefty Herrera, who pumped 98-mph fastballs to strike out Peete and Luis Suisbel to end the inning.
Thomas, a left-handed hitter, went the opposite way for his first homer of the season in the bottom half, then Herrera struck out the side in the ninth, including a couple of 100-mph fastballs to Mariners No. 2 prospect Lazaro Montes and ...
