After a win to start the B.C. Premier Baseball League season, the Whalley Chiefs have now lost four straight games.
The Chiefs dropped both ends of a double header with the Victoria Mariners last Sunday, then fell 10-2 to the Coquitlam Reds Tuesday night. All three games were at Whalley Stadium.
The home side led early in both games against a visiting Victoria team, but were handed losses by 9-6 and 6-4 scores.
“The kids lost focus and don’t have that instinct of taking care of business,” said general manager Paul Hargreaves. “There is no way Victoria is that much better. We would get a lead, then the next inning would start walking guys and kicking the ball around.”
The Chiefs scored four times on five hits in the bottom of the first inning to take a 4-1 lead in game one. But the home team had just four hits the rest of the way.
The Mariners chipped away at the deficit, but Whalley was still in front 6-5 after five innings.
Victoria took the lead with three runs on two hits and a pair of errors in the sixth inning, and added an insurance run in the top of the seventh.
Jacob Robazza went three-for-four at the plate for the Chiefs, with an RBI and one run scored, while Jordan Dray was two-for-four.
The Mariners had 10 hits and five walks off a trio of Chiefs pitchers.
Victoria came from behind again in game two, scoring once in the fifth inning to tie the game 4-4 and breaking the deadlock with two more runs in the sixth.
Dray was forced to take the loss after pitching the final two and two-thirds innings and giving up a pair of unearned runs.
Kimiya Matsuo was the top batter for the home team with a single and a double in two at-bats, scoring one run and driving in another.
In Tuesday’s game, both teams had eight hits, but Reds batters drew nine walks to just one for the Chiefs. Four-run innings in the first and fourth keyed the Coquitlam attack.
Wright and Will Gladwell each had a pair of hits for Whalley, with Robazza hitting his first home run of the season.
Now at 1-4 (won-lost) on the season, the Chiefs will visit the 2-6 White Rock Tritons for two games Saturday at South Surrey Athletic Park. The first game is scheduled to start at noon.