Singing a new tune

YAKIMA -- The bone-jarring music was by Rage against the Machine. The guitarist and lead vocalist was an animated Ian Harrington and the drummer an extremely intense Andrew Fie, madly but rhythmically wielding two wooden spoons on an upside-down trash can.

"I'm sorry you had to see that," Harrington said later, referring to the just-concluded impromptu concert and not the Bears' 6-4 win over Boise.

But no apologies were needed by the home team this time, to the delight of an announced Wednesday night crowd of 1,689 at Yakima County Stadium. Nor was justification required for the postgame antics, which concluded to a rousing clubhouse ovation.

Yakima, after all, had lost three straight and 14 of 18, including the first two of this three-game series to the heavy-hitting Hawks by a combined count of 21-10.

So if Boise (30-18) didn't have this coming, the Bears (17-31) did.

The key was solid pitching by Harrington, Daniel Vasquez, Jordan Meaker and Bryan Woodall, who scattered 10 hits and kept the explosive Hawks from a big inning.

Harrington, whose stuff wasn't as impressive as in his previous outing at Spokane, allowed three earned runs over five innings and improved to 3-4. Vasquez, pitching for the second straight night, authored a scoreless sixth after which Meaker yielded only an unearned run through the seventh and eighth.

The ninth was then vintage Bryan Woodall, whose 1-2-3, one-strikeout inning netted his fourth save and reduced his earned run average to 2.88.

"The guys played great defense behind me," said Harrington, a devout Led Zeppelin fan, "and we got some runs early. Then our bullpen was fantastic."

Enough so to allow four first-inning runs and two more in the fifth stand up.

An error allowed David Cooper to score first, after he'd walked and moved to third on Brendan Duffy's single. Successive doubles by Anthony Smith and Ryan Babineau scored two more, and a sacrifice fly by Jimmy Principe, recently returned from South Bend, plated the fourth.

A base hit by Cooper and a walk to Duffy started the fourth inning, with Cooper coming home on another error and Duffy scoring from third when Ramon Castillo, coming off a three-double, four-RBI night, hit into a double play.

The closest Boise came to erupting was a two-run homer in the fourth by white-hot shortstop Ryan Flaherty, a first-round draftee from Vanderbilt who'd pounded out two doubles, a triple and single the previous night.

"It wasn't Ian's best night," Yakima manager Bob Didier said, "but he kept battling and threw strikes. A real big key was Vasquez giving us an inning. Meaker wasn't real, real sharp, but Woodall was just nails."

So the alarms that awaken the Bears for their 7 a.m. departure for Eugene today won't seem quite as bothersome.

Or nearly as loud as their mimicked, postgame production of Rage Against the Machine.

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