After winning Thursday’s home opener 8-2, the Eugene Emeralds were victorious once again on Friday night. They beat the Hillsboro Hops 3-1 behind a dominant performance on the mound from Nick Morreale and a strong bullpen effort, improving their record to 7-3 and evening the series at 2-2.
Morreale took the hill for Eugene after giving up three runs in 3 1/3 innings in his first outing.
Morreale and Hillsboro’s Bryce Jarvis both dominated early as the game moved at a rocket’s pace. There were exactly two strikeouts in each of the first five half-innings, with no one reaching base for either team.
Simon Whiteman broke this statistical oddity with a rocket to left field in the bottom of the third that was caught at the wall.
Morreale mowed through the Hops’ batters, striking out eight through four perfect innings. His sharp curveball was missing bats and making the Hops look foolish.
With one out in the bottom of the fourth, Will Wilson doubled for the game’s first baserunner. An out later, Sean Roby demolished a home run far over the left field fence to send Eugene out to a 2-0 lead.
Morreale gave up his first hit with one out in the fifth, a soft poker to the right side. After a sacrifice bunt, he gave up a soft infield hit despite the best efforts of third baseman Carter Aldrete, and the runner stole second to put the tying runs in scoring position. Morreale escaped the unlucky jam with his ninth strikeout of the evening.
Taylor Rashi came in for the sixth, despite Morreale only having thrown 68 pitches, and tossed a quick one-two-three frame.
Wilson lined his second double of the game in the sixth. Logan Wyatt then hit one hard to left, but it was caught to end the inning with the score still 2-0.
Rashi gave up two singles in the seventh, but like Morreale in the fifth, recorded a punchout to avoid any damage.
Roby led off the bottom of the frame with a single. With one out, Hops catcher Nick Dalesandro was hit by a foul ball and laid on the field in agony for a few seconds before slowly collecting himself and staying in the game. The next pitch struck out Franklin Labour, and Jarvis was pulled after 6 2/3 strong innings.
Ryan Walker allowed a leadoff single in the eighth. The ball rolled under right fielder Labour’s legs, allowing the runner to advance to third and eventually score on a groundout to cut the Emeralds’ lead in half.
Aldrete led off the bottom of the eighth with a double. Whiteman followed with a single to center, but Aldrete was thrown out at the plate trying to score. Whiteman advanced to second on the throw and stole third, and Wilson stayed hot with a clutch RBI single to make it 3-1. Wilson’s OPS now sits at 1.343.
Jose Marte worked around two singles in a scoreless ninth to secure the 3-1 victory.
The Emeralds (7-3) will play Game 5 of their six-games series against the Hops (4-6) on Saturday at 7:05 p.m.
