The 14th ranked prospect in the Toronto Blue Jays’ system, CJ Van Eyk, made his professional baseball debut tonight, and it didn’t go as well as he would have hoped.
The Vancouver Canadians – who are beginning their season south of the border at Ron Tonkin Field in Hillsboro Oregon due to concerns surrounding the coronavirus – picked up their first win of the season last night after dropping their first two contests and were looking to get their record to.500 with a win tonight.
They gave the ball to Van Eyk in hopes of doing so.
CJ Van Eyk is a strikeout first pitcher who has a knack for making balls miss bats. Tonight, in his professional debut, however, the young pitcher struggled.
The game got out of hand in a hurry from Van Eyk, as the Tri-City Dust Devils managed to work two walks and capitalizing big time on three hits to score four runs and force Van Eyk out of the game in just the very first inning.
To their credit, the Canadians stormed back to tie the game in the second inning with four runs of their own, and had some absolutely stellar performances from a couple of their infielders.
Rafael Lantigua set a new single-game season high with three hits tonight.
He's the @heyyallicedtea Player of the Game, presented by Hey Y’all Southern Style Hard Iced Tea. In the South, our tea is always served iced & hard! pic.twitter.com/sDt0TOrjii
— Vancouver Canadians (Home Games in Hillsboro, OR) (@vancanadians) May 8, 2021
Second baseman Rafael Lantigua had a three-hit performance and first baseman Spencer Horwitz notched three runs batted in, but the C’s offence went dry after their potent second inning.
The Dust Devils scored two runs in the third inning and three in sixth to put this one firmly out of reach of the team that typically occupies Nat Bailey Stadium in Vancouver.
Van Eyk’s final line was just .2 innings pitched, three hits, four earned runs, two walks, zero strikeouts and an ugly 54.00 earned run average.
The Vancouver Canadians will play game five of their six game series against the Dust Devils tomorrow night, with first pitch scehduled for 6:37 PM.