Hits and walks were plentiful on Saturday as the Ridgefield Raptors won their ninth-straight West Coast League baseball game by beating the Bend Elks 15-6 at Vince Genna Stadium in Bend.
There were a combined 25 hits and 28 walks off the nine pitchers used in the game.
Ridgefield (13-6) benefitted the most from the 17 walks they were issued as four came with the bases loaded.
It wasn’t all free passes that helped the Raptors. They did pound out 14 hits with a trio of three-hit batters.
Tristan Gomes went 3 for 4 with a double, a solo home run and scored three times. Jake Tsukada went 3 for 4 with three RBI, and Jacob Sharp was 3 for 5 with an RBI.
Ridgefield led 4-0 after two innings, and Bend (7-10) closed the gap to 4-3 after the fourth.
That’s when the Elks pitching really went south. Ridgefield scored five runs in the fifth — three on bases-loaded walks and Tsukada’s two-run single — to pull ahead 9-3.
Gomes’ first homer of the season made it 10-3 in the sixth.
Bend rallied in the seventh for three runs to make it 10-6 but got no closer.
Columbia River High grad and Washington Huskies pitcher Sawyer Parker picked up the win in his first start of the summer season for Ridgefield. He allowed two runs on five hits with a walk in three innings.
The South Division first-place Raptors finish the three-game series at Bend on Sunday and then return to the RORC on Tuesday to begin another three-game against the Elks.
