Emeralds first baseman Santos Encarnacion watches as a Vancouver player heads to second. The Ems currently own a 4-9 record.
When a baseball team’s offense is clicking, defense tends to fade into the early-evening shadows.
Nonetheless, it was the Eugene Emeralds’ defense that most impressed manager Jeff Gardner following the Ems’ 13-0 victory over Yakima Monday night.
“We made some great plays,” Gardner said. “It hasn’t really come together for us yet, but we played really well tonight.”
The Emeralds, now 4-9 on the season, entered Monday’s game riding a two-game losing streak to Yakima. Both those losses — Saturday’s 4-0 setback and Sunday’s 4-3 defeat — came, in part, because of the Ems’ eight combined errors in the games.
Monday night’s game was a different story. Although the Ems’ bats heated up as well, the most impressive statistic was the zero at the end of the scoreboard — for zero errors. The Ems even got some “web gems” from second baseman John DiBetta and first baseman Jonathan Benick. In the top of the fourth inning, DiBetta snagged a line drive off the bat of the Bears’ Kyle Nichols and doubled off Reinaldo Barrera at first. In the sixth, Benick made an over-the-back catch in foul territory to end Yakima’s chances in that inning.
On the offensive side of the ball, the Emeralds used an avalanche of runs in the third and fifth innings to bury the Bears. In the bottom of the third, leadoff hitter Matt Hellman singled to center field for the Ems’ second hit of the game. Shortstop Jason Bartlett reached on an infield hit, and then third baseman Jake Gautreau scored the game’s first run in an odd fashion after a wild pitch advanced the runners. Gautreau sent a slow roller back to the pitcher’s mound, which just trickled underneath the glove of Yakima pitcher Tanner Ericksen.
The Bears committed one more error in the inning when catcher Bryan Loeb mishandled a throw home by the third baseman, and the Ems got hits from DiBetta and designated hitter Greg Sain en route to a five-run inning.
Eugene got a two-run home run from Sain in the fifth inning and never looked back at Yakima.
“We’ve swung the bats OK for most of the season,” Gardner said. “It’s just been a matter of putting it all together for one game. This definitely feels better than losing. This gives us something to build on.”
While DiBetta, Sain and others had big offensive nights Monday, all eyes at Civic Stadium were trained on Gautreau. The third baseman was playing his first games as an Emerald after the San Diego Padres — the Ems’ parent major league club — took Gautreau in the first round of the 2001 amateur draft. Gautreau, who recently finished his senior season at Tulane, went 4-12 over his first three games in Eugene.
The Emeralds play the fourth game of the homestand tonight at 7:05 p.m. and conclude with the July Fourth fireworks spectacular Wednesday at 6:35 p.m.