Homers by Ricardo Genoves and Brett Auerbach proved insurmountable for the visiting Hillsboro Hops as the Eugene Emeralds held on for the win, 5-4.  The two teams can barely get an edge on the other as both games in this young series have been decided by one run.

Evenly Matched

This year, Eugene and Hillsboro seem two sides of the same mirror.  The second week of meeting between these two stands out as the exception as the Ems swept the Hops 6-0 in the series.  It was truly an outlier as the rest of the season is the opposite.  During their first week, the two teams split their series 3-3.  It was the same during their third meeting.  Now this meeting, their fourth, stands at 1-1.

Overall, again not counting “The Sweep”, the first totaled runs with the Hops winning by one, 24-23.  In the third week, the run totals were 25-24, in favor of Eugene.  Now, this meeting so far features scoring totals of 7-7.  That would bring the running totals to 56 runs for Eugene and 56 runs for Hillsboro.  Can’t get much closer than that.

Eerie Parallel

Back to tonight’s game, both teams started out as parallels of each other again.  Both teams went through a scoreless inning in the first.  That would not be an odd coincidence.  After that, the parallel becomes eerie.

In the top of the second, the Hops led off with a Eduardo Diaz walk, Axel Andueza and Cam Coursey singles, with Coursey scoring Diaz and Andueza.  With one out, Jorge Barrosa doubled home Coursey.  Hops led 3-0.

Now the bottom of the inning.  The Ems stepped up to the plate and led off with a Sean Roby single, Tyler Fitzgerald being hit by a pitch and Ricardo Genoves walking to fill the bases.  Still no outs, Franklin Labour walks with the bases loaded to score Roby.  After two strikeouts, Ismael Munguia  reached base on a fielding error by Hops’ third baseman Tristin English.  That error proved an equalizer and Fitzgerald and Genoves found their way home to tie the score.

Homers by Genoves/Auerbach

The Ems found their own way to score the same number of runs in the same inning as the Hops.  From here on out, the game took on a different method to score a run: homers by both teams.

In the fourth, Ricardo Genoves led off with a solo home run to give the Ems the lead.  In the fifth, Brett Auerbach led off with a solo shot to bump the lead up to two.  Now, the Hops turn.  In the seventh, Dom Canzone led off with his solo shot.  But here, the dual paths separate as the Hops had no one in the following innings to lead off with a second solo shot.  The Ems outlast the Hops by a score of one, 5-4.

Return of Brandon Pfaadt

Lost in all of this, the game featured the return of Brandon Pfaadt (L, 2-3) after his last appearance: an historic night where he threw a complete game shutout.  This time proved different.  By the end of the sixth inning, Brandon had gone through 91 pitches, the same number he used in his complete game.  During tonight’s span, he gave up all five runs to the Ems, including the homers by Genoves and Auerbach,  though he struck out another eleven batters as he did last game.

Justin Lewis relieved Pfaadt and finished the last two innings allowing no runs on no hits.

Homers by Teammates Give Ems first Lead

The Ems’ starting pitcher, Kai-Wei Teng, was chased after three innings after throwing 78 pitches and allowing three runs by the Hops.  Travis Perry (W, 7-1) followed with three innings of near perfect mound coverage allowing no runs and only Nick Dalesandro’s single on his first pitch of the game.  After that, Perry shut down the Hops as homers by Genoves and Auerback gave him the two run lead to earn the win.

Tyler Schimpf (H, 2) and Chris Wright (S, 6) finished the game and allowed only Canzone’s homer to threaten the lead.  Though the ninth did prove to be a bit of a roadblock to overcome.  The Hops managed to load the bases with one out before Wright induced a ground out double play to end the inning.

Standings

The win allowed the Eugene Emeralds (39-28) to keep pace with league leading Everett, who also won tonight, at five and a half games back.  The loss dropped the Hillsboro Hops (29-37) to 15 games behind Everett and one game behind Spokane.

Furthermore, both teams meet again for game#3 Thursday night in PK Park.  The Ems also broadcast their home games on MiLB.tv plus you can listen on 620 AM radio.

Box Score

By

Greg Stoker

@GDStoker