712.277.WINS (9467)

SIOUX CITY | The roller-coaster ride Jason Jarvis took this season wasn’t too dissimilar to the Jekyll-and-Hyde campaign his Sioux City Explorers’ teammates experienced.

And, although he was ejected in the seventh inning for throwing at Kansas City T-Bones’ catcher Trevor Coleman, the former Arizona State star finished off an impressive late-season surge with a win as the X’s capped their 20th year with a 4-3 triumph Monday night at Lewis and Clark Park.

Cramming six of their eight total hits into a four-run fifth inning, the Explorers got all the offense they would need to complete a 100-game American Association schedule with a 45-55 record.

Remarkably, Jarvis was pitching on just two days’ rest, coming off a league-leading sixth complete game on Friday that earned him the league’s pitcher of the week laurels.

“Jason wanted the ball,’’ said Sioux City Manager Stan Cliburn. “That takes a strong man to come back and do that three nights after you’ve thrown 110 pitches (in a 5-2 win at playoff-bound Winnipeg).’’

“We didn’t have a starter for tonight and I just decided I was going to get ready and make the start,’’ said Jarvis, a former high school All-American from Scottsdale, Ariz. “I felt good enough to pitch. And, I don’t have to throw again for a while.’’

The 24-year-old righthander put together back-to-back shutouts to climb above .500 at 4-3 on June 24. However, he tumbled into a 0-5 skid in his next seven starts before getting back on track in early August. Counting Monday’s outing, he went 5-0 with a 2.30 ERA over his last six starts, edging out veteran lefthander Richard Salazar (8-7) as the team’s season win leader.

A leadoff walk to Coleman, the only free pass Jarvis issued, helped the visitors score the game’s first two runs. Devin Goodwin, coming off a two-homer, five-RBI night in a 9-3 Kansas City win on Sunday, followed with a triple that drove in Coleman, scoring moments later on a base rap by Kris Sanchez.

Pumping his fist as he crossed home plate, Coleman drew the ire of Jarvis, who made his feelings known two innings later.

First, though, the Explorers wasted no time erasing the 2-0 deficit, starting the home half of the fifth with four consecutive singles.

One out later, with one run in and one out, the T-Bones lifted starter Josh Rainwater for Shaun Garceau, another starter who was making his first relief appearance of the season. Brian Bistagne greeted Garceau with a two-run single to send the X’s in front and Wally Backman, Jr., added an RBI single for a 4-2 lead.

Backman’s base hit wound up plating the deciding run after Brandon Jones lined a two-out homer over the right-field wall, whittling the difference to 4-3.

Then came the tumultuous seventh frame, which saw Jarvis fire a 1-0 pitch at the head of Coleman -- a pitch that actually hit Coleman’s bat for a strike. Home plate umpire Troy Solsaa immediately signaled an ejection for Jarvis.

“I pretty much told (Coleman) what I thought,’’ said Jarvis, referring to the purpose pitch. “I didn’t think he should be fist pumping like he did. He’s probably a rookie.’’

Cliburn quickly came to the defense of his pitcher, disputing the decision with Solsaa long enough to get tossed for the first time all season.

“I wanted to be here till the end, but that’s baseball -- you protect your players,’’ said Cliburn. “I told Joe (Pascucci), the crew chief, there’s going to be some action. How (Jarvis is) going to handle it is in his hands. If you hit a guy, yeah, he has to go. But that pitch hit the bat. It was a strike. There should have been a warning.’’

Colin Allen, winless in five decisions this season between the X’s and El Paso, took over for Jarvis and promptly yielded a base hit to Coleman. However, Allen got away with a one-out walk and then a one-out single in the eighth without surrendering a run before 6-foot 8-inch Jon Plefka, the former Texas Tech power forward, logged his first save of the summer, retiring three of the four batters he faced in the ninth.

Article courtesy of Terry Hersom of the Sioux City Journal