Looking to keep their season alive, the Eugene Emeralds defeated the Hillsboro Hops 6-2 in game two of the first round of the Northwest League playoffs.
Eugene and Hillsboro play again on Friday night in the finale of the best-of-three series.
The Emeralds wasted no time trying to put last night’s tough extra-inning loss behind them. DJ Wilson and Yeiler Peguero led off the bottom of the first with back-to-back singles. They were able to make it to second and third base to set up Chris Pieters for the RBI double to take a 2-0 lead.
“We ran the bases well,” manager Jesus Feliciano said. “We got key hits and executed well.”
With one out in the bottom of the second, Kevonte Mitchell hit a triple and scored on a successful bunt attempt by Wilson. Robert Garcia later scored on a single by Peguero to make it 4-0, ending the night for Hops starting pitcher Bo Takahashi. Wei-Chieh Huang came in and surrendered a sacrifice fly to Pieters to score Wilson and give the Emeralds a five-run cushion.
The top of the lineup continued to do damage to the Hops. Wilson continued his big night in the fourth inning with a one out triple. He scored on a sacrifice fly by Peguero to push the lead to six runs.
That proved to be more than enough runs for Emeralds starting pitcher Pedro Silverio, who did his part to keep the team alive. He struck out eight batters in five scoreless innings, surrendering just two hits in the win. The Emeralds turned to their bullpen in the sixth inning to take them to a deciding game three tomorrow night.
Duncan Robinson entered the game and continued where Silverio left off, keeping the Hops scoreless through eight innings until Hillsboro finally broke the scoreless streak with two runs in the ninth, but that did not diminish a strong outing from the two pitchers.
“They were awesome,” Feliciano said.  “They were aggressive and they saved our bullpen so we are fresh for tomorrow so let’s go win another one.”
The deciding game three of the series is set for 7:05 p.m. on Friday at PK Park. The winner will advance to play Everett or Spokane in the NWL championship series.
Follow Zak Laster on Twitter @zlast3445