Old Eugene Emeralds caps were taken out of the closet across the city Sunday. The Civic Stadium stands had to be dusted off. The scoreboard was checked to make sure it was working.
The Ems opened their home season, albeit with a whimper on the field itself. The Eugene minor-league baseball club, an affiliate of the San Diego Padres, lost its home opener to the Vancouver Canadians, 7-1.
The blowout didn’t stop a large portion of the 4,886 fans from staying the entire game for various opening-day promotions and fanfare.
The Emeralds entered Sunday’s home opener with a 2-3 record after an up-and-down first series with the Yakima Bears. The Ems continued their erratic ways in two home-opening losses to the Vancouver Canadians. The Ems lost Monday’s game by a score of 9-8.
Ems manager Jeff Gardner was optimistic about his season, despite Eugene’s 2-5 record.
“We’ll win our share of games,” Gardner said. “Of course I’m disappointed we didn’t win, but there were a lot of good things that happened out there.”
Sunday’s home opener was an ominous start to the series with the Canadians. Geoff Jones, who received a no decision in his first start at Yakima, pitched four strong innings starting for the Ems. Jones struck out eight, walked three and gave up only two runs. He left the game with the score tied 1-1.
That tie wouldn’t last for long. Darwin Soto pitched two strong innings, John Herbert pitched one more, and then Juan Mejia got picked apart by the Canadians’ bats. Mejia would end up walking three batters, giving up two hits and earning five runs. The Ems would not recover.
Monday’s game was a much closer affair. The Ems and Canadians traded fistfuls of runs all game, and eventually sent the game to extra innings tied 7-7.
The Ems had a chance to win the game in the bottom of the ninth, when John Puccinelli led off with a single. Pinch runner Eddie Serrano was advanced to third after a single and a ground out. Shortstop Jason Bartlett –who had been 2-3 with a triple up until that point — had a chance to win the game but struck out.
The Canadians went quietly in the top of the 10th, and the Ems pounced right away in the bottom of the first extra inning. Second baseman John DiBetta singled to left and designated hitter Greg Sain was hit by a pitch. The next batter, catcher Nick Trzesniak, got the remaining fans out of their seats with a deep fly ball to center, but merely succeeded in advancing DiBetta to third. The next two Ems batters were retired, ending the Ems’ hopes for a win in that inning.
“We had our chances,” Gardner said. “We could have won the game a couple of times.”
In the top of the 11th inning, the Canadians’ Sandy Madera walked, reached second on a sacrifice bunt, then scored on left fielder Joe Cirone’s single to left-center field. Cirone was sacrificed to second, then catcher Jorge Soto walked. Canadians shortstop J.P. Schmidt scored what would be the winning run with a single up the middle.
At 11:03 p.m., the game finally ended, without much of the Eugene crowd around to see the finish.
The Ems conclude their home stand with Vancouver tonight at 7:05 p.m.