Before Wednesday night’s matchup between the Hillsboro Hops and Eugene Emeralds at PK Park, local district All-Star teams took the field to commemorate their recent success.
These same little leaguers probably could’ve put up a better offensive fight than Eugene last night. The Emeralds didn’t record a hit until the sixth, squeezing out all but two runs in the 3-2 loss.
The offense wasn’t that much better tonight with only four hits recorded, but it was still enough for the Emeralds to reign victorious, 5-4. The bullpen was the story for Eugene in the win, as they single-handedly put the team on their back.
For the Emeralds, Kai-Wei Teng got the rock. Earlier this season, Teng was busted for using foreign substances on the mound. On Wednesday night, it was clear that Teng probably would’ve benefited from using some gorilla glue or spider tack on the bump.
Eduardo Diaz led off the second with a walk, Teng’s third of the game already. An infield single and passed ball set up runners in scoring position for Cam Coursey, who lined a single to center. Two batters later, Jorge Barrosa doubled Coursey home to make it 3-0 Hops.
The Emeralds would get all those runs back in the bottom half. A single, a hit by pitch and a walk loaded the bases with no outs for Franklin Labour, who drew a walk to get the Emeralds on the board. The next two batters, Heath Quinn and Tyler Flores, struck out with the bases loaded as it looked like Eugene was only going to get one run out of the opportunistic rally.
Ismael Munguia stepped up next and sent a broken-bat grounder to third that should’ve been the third out. Instead the ball went right under Tristin English’s legs, allowing two runs to score and the Emeralds to tie the game at three.
Despite surrendering two walks in the third, Teng worked through the inning unharmed. This would be Teng’s last inning however with pitch count and accuracy proving to be his Achilles’ heel.
He finished his three innings with three hits, two wild pitches, and four walks — three of them on four pitches. He also threw 78 pitches with just 42 of them being strikes, a very low percentage.
The Emeralds took their first lead of the series off a Ricardo Genovés solo home run in the fourth.
In the fifth, it was Brett Auerbach’s turn, as the red-hot second baseman added another solo shot to give the Emeralds a 5-3 cushion. The home run marked Auerbach’s second in as many days.
Travis Perry didn’t have his best stuff on the mound for the Emeralds, but he dug deep and gave them a much-needed performance in relief. His scoreless fourth, fifth and sixth innings in relief helped the Emeralds maintain a slim two-run lead.
Tyler Schmipf took over in the seventh, and on his fourth pitch, Dominic Canzone launched a solo bomb to right to cut the lead in half at 5-4.
The Hops turned to Justin Lewis in the seventh to end Brandon Pfaadt’s impressive day on the mound. Pfaadt kept the Emeralds hitters in check for most of the night with six innings of work, four hits and three earned runs surrendered. He also added 11 strikeouts to grow his total to a whopping 95 over 73 innings of work on the year.
Schmipf found command of his secondary pitches in the eighth, and by result, he worked a nice scoreless inning.
Chris Wright got the ball in the ninth looking to shut the door on the Hops. Wright has had a dream season for the Emeralds all year, but he ran into trouble. With just one out, Wright had walked the bases loaded, but he induced an inning-ending double play to secure the win.
The Emeralds’ bullpen combined to go six innings while surrendering just one run. Without their performance tonight, Eugene could’ve easily been looking at their second straight loss to the Hops.
Instead, the Emeralds claim the victory and move to 39-28 on the season, evening the series at a game apiece. The two teams will be back in action Thursday night at 7:05 p.m.
