It was an exciting day for Eugene Emeralds fans on Thursday. It was the High-A debut for the freshly promoted Marcio Luciano — the Giants’ consensus No. 1 prospect and the No. 11 prospect in all of baseball.
The 19-year-old shortstop phenom was slotted into the two-hole in the Emeralds’ matchup against the last place Tri-City Dust Devils. Luciano hit an RBI double in the third inning, as the Emeralds took down the Dust-Devils 7-4 at PK Park for their third straight victory. Armani Smith also homered, while right-hander Aaron Phillips turned in a solid start.
In Luciano’s first at-bat, he popped out to former Duck Kenyon Yovan in a “when worlds collide” type of moment.
Phillips, who entered the night with a 6.67 ERA, mowed through the first three innings without allowing any hits.
In the bottom of the third, Emeralds third baseman Carter Aldrete got to hit, while his real life friend Yovan played first base. Aldrete wound up flying out to Yovan — the third popout to Yovan in as many innings.
Robert Emery and Ismael Munguia then hit back-to-back singles, with Munguia advancing to second on the throw. Luciano stepped up for his second at-bat and crushed a two-run double to left field, putting the Emeralds up 2-0 and eliciting a roar from the crowd at PK Park.
Smith followed by demolishing a two-run homer way over the left field fence. Sean Roby and Tyler Fitzgerald also made some hard contact with a single and a double, respectively, but Franklin Labour and Heath Quinn struck out as the Emeralds settled for a four-spot.
Phillips gave up his first hit in the fourth, but nothing more. In the fifth, he gave up a leadoff double to former Duck Kyle Kasser, who also reached his first time up via a walk. After the next batter singled, Kasser came home on a sacrifice fly to get Tri-City on the board.
Aldrete singled in the bottom of the fourth for Eugene, standing on first with Yovan manning the position. The Emeralds stranded runners in scoring position in the third, fourth and fifth as they struggled to tack on to their 4-1 lead.
With a runner on first in the top of the sixth and the count 0-2, Yovan smacked one down the left field line into the corner to bring home a run. The stadium organist played the Oregon fight song as Yovan cruised into second. Kasser followed with a single — his third time reaching base — putting runners on the corners and bringing an end to Phillips’ night after 5 1/3 innings pitched.
Travis Perry came in and struck out a batter before giving up a two-run double. After the Emeralds appeared to have the game in the bag, the Dust Devils came roaring back to knot things up at four apiece.
A single and back-to-back walks loaded the bases with no outs for Eugene in the bottom of the seventh. Aldrete then drove one to the right-center field gap for a two-run double as the Emeralds regained the lead. Munguia added on with a single that made it 7-4.
Luciano stepped up to the plate with chants of “Marco! Marco!” filling the stadium. He hit a rocket that Tri-City shortstop Livan Soto incredibly kept in the infield to keep any more runs off the board. In fact, all three outs in the bottom of the seventh were sharp groundouts to Soto.
Despite some missed opportunities to make it a bigger blowout, the Emeralds held on to win with Chris Wright recording the final three outs.
With the Emeralds winning three straight, and the Everett AquaSox losing three straight, the Emeralds have closed the gap in the High-A West to 4.5 games. They look to secure the series victory and win their fourth straight on Friday at 7:05 p.m.
