The Eugene Emeralds lost 7-3 to the Vancouver Canadians on Sunday at Ron Tonkin Field. A slew of errors and hits early on put the Canadians in front, and the Emeralds could never catch up. Despite the loss, the Emeralds still won four of six over the Canadians, and sit in first place in the High-A West.
Right-hander Aaron Phillips took the mound for Eugene for his third start of the year, after posting a 2.79 ERA in his first two.
He worked around a leadoff double in the first and another double in the second to keep the game scoreless through two innings.
The Canadians struck first, in the bottom of the third. Two singles, as well as throwing errors by third Jacob Gonzalez and Phillips himself, brought home the game’s first run. A fielding error by shortstop Will Wilson kept the inning alive, and Phillips allowed another single that made it 2-0 before he finally induced a fly out to send the game to the fourth. The Emeralds made four errors in the half-inning.
The Emeralds got on the board in the fourth, as Logan Wyatt came through with a two-out RBI single to cut the deficit in half. Wyatt has started to get his season back on track this series after falling into an ugly slump.
The Canadians fought back, rallying for three more runs off Phillips in the bottom of the fourth to make it 5-1. Phillips was taken out after pitching four innings, allowing five runs (four earned) on 10 hits and no walks while striking out three.
Solomon Bates came in to pitch the fifth. After he gave up a leadoff single, a passed ball, a wild pitch and a groundout allowed the run to score and make it 6-1.
The Emeralds didn’t go down without a fight. Wyatt led off the seventh with a walk, and Franklin Labour singled to put runners on the corners with no outs. Two sacrifice flies brought in two runs as the Emeralds crawled the score back to 6-3.
The Canadians loaded the bases with one out against Jasier Herrera in the seventh, but Herrera recorded a strikeout to keep the deficit within three runs.
An error and a couple walks loaded the bases for Eugene in the eighth, putting the tying runs on base and go-ahead run at the plate. Gonzalez struck out though, and Tyler Flores grounded out as the Emeralds weren’t able to cash in.
Vancouver scratched out an insurance run in the bottom of the eighth off Tyler Schimpf, and headed to the ninth up 7-3. The Emeralds couldn’t get anything going in the final inning, snapping their two-game winning streak.
The Emeralds (19-11) still take the series over the Canadians 4-2, and are yet to lose a series this year. They’ll travel to Everett next for their first matchup of the season against the second-place AquaSox. The six-game series starts with Game 1 on Tuesday at 7:05 p.m.
