Cubs test Movers’ mettle

The Hawaii Island Movers lost their opening game of the summer baseball season when they faced two veteran pitchers who changed speeds and location well last night at Les Murakami Stadium.

Former Hawaii right-handers Sean Yamashita (1999-2002), who went the first six innings, and Daven Hermosura (1996-97), who pitched the seventh and eighth, limited the Movers to six hits with their wood bats and two runs.

"Those two guys have pitched before and they are scrappy," Movers coach Rich Olsen said.

Tyler Inouye set the Movers down in order in the ninth.

The Oahu Cubs, known as the Hawaii All Stars on the Movers' schedule, used aluminum bats and collected nine hits in the 6-2 victory.

The big gun for the Cubs was designated hitter Keahi Kapana, who was 3-for-3 with a walk, two doubles and two runs batted in.

Olsen used 17 position players and plans to do that for the next three games against the Cubs prior to the Movers' trip to Japan.

"Rotating as many players as possible in each night will give us a better idea of what we have," Olsen said. "Them using aluminum is a little disadvantageous, but it's OK because I want our pitchers to learn to work a little harder.

"For our batters, batting practice is one thing with the wood bat, but competition is another thing. We'll adjust quickly. We have to because it is all wood bats in Japan."

The Cubs got on the scoreboard first in the second with a run off Movers' starter Marc Nobriga. Kapana opened the inning with a double off the wall in the right-field corner. He took third on Robin Ho's single up the middle and scored on Jon Torres' sacrifice fly to left.

The Movers tied the score in the bottom of the inning off Yamashita.

Ben Price walked on a 3-2 pitch, stole second, moved to third on Garrett Rice's fly to right and scored on Mark Veneri's chopper to third.

The teams traded runs again in the third inning.

Jacob Mellor singled to left with one out for the Cubs. He took second when Kapana walked and scored on a single to center by Ho.

Bryson Tajiri got the Movers' first hit, a double down the right-field line, to start the bottom of the inning. He stole third and scored when Ho, the Cubs' catcher, made a wild throw to second on Mike Gehringer's stolen base.

The Cubs broke the 2-2 tie in the seventh with three runs off Brandon Hickey, who took over for Nobriga in the fifth.

Mellor's two-out single to right scored Kaohi Downing with the tie-breaking run. After Blaine Umeda singled, Kapana doubled to the left-center-field alley to bring in two more runs for a 5-2 Cubs lead.

Their final run came in the ninth on Ron McCullough's double off a diving third baseman Danny Lee's glove that followed walks to Aaron Powell and Mellor by the Movers' third pitcher, Kanekoa Texeira.