Aaron Hernandez held rule from the mound allowing only two hits to the visiting Hillsboro Hops while the home team Tri City Dust Devils spread seven hits and two runs over eight innings of offense to defeat the Hops 2-0.

The Needed Run

Tri City’s first and only needed run came in the second inning when Francisco Del Valle and Franklin Torres both led off with back-to-back singles.  Francisco scored two batters later when Brandon White hit into a double play.

The second run came in the eighth.  Carlos Herrera led off by getting hit by a pitch from Hops reliever Kai-Wei Lin.  Carlos took third on Francisco’s following single and came home on Kyle Kasser’s sacrifice bunt.  Kasser recently came off the 7-day injured list and returned to action tonight.

Despite the two runs, the Hops starting pitcher Matt Tabor effectively held down the home team the rest of the way.  In fact, on most nights, Tabor’s one earned run allowed would have been enough for a win.  Matt spread his 77 pitches over seven innings while striking out five.

Aaron Hernandez Hard to Beat

While Hops starting pitcher Matt Tabor (L, 2-2) did his best to smother the Dust Devil’s bats, Tri City starting pitcher Aaron Hernandez (W, 1-1) suffocated the Hops bats.  In five innings, Hernandez faced three over the minimum number of batters.

Dom Canzone punched a two-out single in the third inning.  Spencer Brickhouse punched another two-out single in the fifth.  Before that, Tristin English reached first on a wild pitch from Hernadez on a third strike.  No other Hops’ batter made it to first.  The three that did make it to first, never made it past second.

During his time on the mound, Aaron Hernandez spent 66 pitches over five innings, the minimum required for a starting pitcher to earn the win.

Dylan King Takes Reign From Aaron Hernandez

Even more impressive, Dylan King (S, 1) came on for the last four innings and faced the minimum twelve batters to close out the game.  Of those twelve, King struck out eight, forced two to ground out and got Eduardo Diaz to fly out to right.  DIaz was the only Hops batter, under King, to get out of the infield.  Dylan struck out the first seven batters he faced before he allowed a batter to ground out.

With these two pitchers teaming up against the Hops, Hillsboro was just three batters away from giving Tri City a perfect game.  Just being shut out looked like an accomplishment.

Standings

The win kept the Tri City Dust Devils (7-16) eight games behind first place as Everett also won tonight.  The loss dropped the Hillsboro Hops (10-13) to five games back of the lead.  Both teams meet each other for the sixth and final game Sunday Afternoon at 1:05 PM.  Hillsboro currently leads the six game series 3-2.  The Dust Devils have a chance to even it up before it’s over.

Drey Jameson (0-2) will take the mound for the Hops.  Zach Linginfelter (0-2) will face him for the Dust Devils.  You can listen to the game on Rip City 620 AM.

Steals

The Hops only managed to add one steal to their MiLB leading total of 67.  That can happen when you only get three base runners for the entire game.  The Low A Southeast Lakeland Flying Tigers remain at 48 steals.  Good for second place on the continent but dropping one steal behind the leading Hops.

My look at the fourth week of the Hops season is coming up.  Catch up on last week’s look at the third week of the season if you missed it.

Box Score

By

Greg Stoker

@GDStoker