Just one out into the High-A West Championship Series, the Eugene Emeralds already led 8-0. Any nerves they might have had quickly evaporated.
Their monster first inning led them to an easy 15-7 victory as they kicked off a best-of-five series against the Spokane Indians at Avista Stadium. The Indians fought back in the later innings, but the early margin proved insurmountable, and the Emeralds put up 20 hits in an offensive clinic.
The offense hit the ground not just running, but sprinting. Ismael Munguia — the regular season High-A batting champion — did what he does best, leading off the game with a single. Brett Auerbach walked, and Armani Smith singled in the first run of the game.
On the very next pitch, Sean Roby blasted a three-run homer that made it 4-0 before an out was recorded. A walk and a Marco Luciano triple made it 5-0, followed by back-to-back homers from Ricardo Genoves and Franklin Labour that blasted the Emeralds out to an 8-0 lead.
Spokane starter Helcris Olivarez had an absolutely miserable outing. He was taken out after giving up all eight of those runs and only recording one out. His postseason ERA sits at an eye-popping 216.00.
The Emeralds added two more in the third inning on Genoves’ second homer of the night and another homer from Munguia.
Seth Corry took the mound for Eugene and had one of his most encouraging outings yet. The Emeralds are still limiting his innings so he only went three, but he did so without issuing a walk while throwing 33 of his 47 pitches for strikes. His control has been significantly better since his developmental assignment, and he keeps taking slightly bigger steps in the right direction.
Corry allowed a solo homer in the third, but otherwise kept Spokane off the board while striking out five.
John Russell backed him up with two scoreless innings. The Emeralds seemed to be cruising to a blowout victory, up 10-1 after five innings.
The Indians showed some fight though, rallying for three runs against Solomon Bates in the sixth and three more against Ty Weber — aided by a Tyler Fitzgerald error — in the seventh. With a Genoves sacrifice fly in the top of the seventh, the Emeralds’ lead shrunk to a still comfortable four runs.
The Emeralds offense kept rolling, hushing any thoughts of a miraculous comeback for Spokane. Roby came through with a clutch two-out RBI single in the eighth, and they added three more in the ninth to blow it open again. Luciano doubled to go a homer short of the cycle, Labour and Munguia hit back-to-back RBI singles and Smith put the icing on the cake with yet another RBI single to make it 15-7.
Out of the bullpen, Austin Reich continued to make baseball look easy, pitching 1 2/3 scoreless innings with three strikeouts — just another outing for him. Nick Avila shut the door in the ninth, putting the cap on an Emeralds victory in the first game of the High-A West Championship Series.
Eugene will look to march to a 2-0 series lead on Wednesday, with first pitch slated for 6:30 p.m.
