The Eugene Emeralds entered this past week with a chance to make or break their season. They had seven games upcoming against the first-place Everett AquaSox, who they trailed by 6.5 games in the standings. A beatdown of the AquaSox would have gotten them back within striking distance of first place, but a series of brutal losses would have essentially killed any hopes they still had of winning the High-A West.
Instead, neither happened, as it was a fairly neutral series for the Emeralds. They were in every game, losing some close ones and dropping the series, but still winning three and only falling behind one extra game in the standings. The Emeralds have now lost all three series they’ve played against Everett, and have not lost a series to any other team.
Emeralds put up a strong offensive fight
The Emeralds’ bats performed well against some tough Everett pitchers. After losing two of the first three games, they put up 21 runs in the next two games to temporarily take the lead in the series.
Three of their four losses were decided by one run — games they nearly won but couldn’t quite come through with that big hit. With a little more luck in their favor, the outcome of this series could have been very different.
Franklin Labour, who came into the series struggling a bit, had a monster week, going 10-for-22 with three homers and a 1.541 OPS. Tyler Fitzgerald and Brett Auerbach also posted OPSs north of 1.000, while Heath Quinn, Carter Aldrete and Ismael Munguia all had solid weeks in their own right.
Pitching struggled against a potent Everett offense
The Emeralds’ pitchers still found themselves struggling to contain the AquaSox hitters. They gave up 44 runs (38 earned) in 55 innings, good for a 6.22 ERA.
It was an offensive battle on both sides, and had the Emeralds given up just slightly fewer runs, those one-run losses could have had different outcomes. The Emeralds were just a tick away on either the hitting or pitching side from taking and possibly even sweeping this series, but the offense couldn’t quite come up with that big hit and the pitching got hit around just a little too much for that to happen.
Seth Corry had his worst start of the season, going just 2/3 of an inning and giving up six runs. Nick Avila gave up eight runs in two innings, while newcomer Jake Dahlberg gave up nine runs in eight innings.
One standout reliever was Austin Reich, who pitched five hitless, scoreless innings with eight strikeouts and no walks. Kai-Wei Teng also had a solid outing, pitching five scoreless.
The Emeralds’ pitching staff did strike out 71 in 55 innings, returning to form in that regard after their elite early-season numbers slipped. But walks remained a problem, with 28 free passes issued. They also allowed 13 home runs, the most in the High-A West last week.
Now down 7.5 games in the standings, they’ll come home to Eugene to take on the last-place Tri-City Dust Devils. Former Duck Kenyon Yovan will be returning to PK Park for the first time since losing a heartbreaker in the Eugene Regional earlier this year. First pitch is on Tuesday at 7:05 p.m.
