Carlos Hernandez, Hillsboro Hops Blank Eugene Emeralds, 3-0
The Hillsboro Hops helped themselves to a win over the frustrated Eugene Emeralds, 3-0. Carlos Hernandez was the starter, going six scoreless innings and scattering five hits around the game. Hernandez struck out six batters increasing his NW League leading total to 89. Second place in the current standings is Eugene Emeralds’ pitcher Oscar De La Cruz who is 20 strikeouts behind with eight games left to play.
While Carlos Hernandez (5-3) earned the win, Brody Greer (S-4) came on the last two innings for the save and was equally impressive. Greer struck out all three batters he faced in the eighth. Greer faced four batters in the final inning, striking out two.
The Hops first run came in the fifth when Gerard Hernandez tripled and then came home on BJ Lopez’s ground out to Emeralds’ third baseman Andrew Ely who only had the throw to first as an option.
The Hops added two more in the eighth just to be safe. Sergio Alcantara and Dansby Swanson started off with consecutive walks. With Grant Heyman at the plate, a wild throw by Scott Effross moved both runners into scoring position. Alcantara came home on a grounder to first baseman Blake Headley. Headley chose to throw home to get Alcantara but the throw was late leaving Heyman safe at first. Swanson scored when Trevor Mitsui grounded into a 6-4-3 double play.
The Emeralds came close to scoring several times including a triple by Adonis Paula in the fifth and having the bases loaded in the eighth with two outs, but Eugene would leave ten runners stranded throughout the evening, including six in scoring position.
The Emeralds’ starter Kyle Miller pitched three scoreless innings, leaving in the fourth with the score tied 0-0. Casey Bloomquist (0-1) continued with a three up and three down fourth inning but would give up the run in the fifth for the loss.
The Hops would make the most of three hits during the game. Two of those hits were a double by Grant Heyman and a triple by Gerard Hernandez who scored the eventual game winning run in the fifth. Trevor Mitsui RBI’d in his fifth consecutive game increasing his team lead to 34. Josh Anderson went 1 for 3 increasing his team leading batting average on the active roster to .284.
More Emeralds’ bats were working tonight. Eloy Jimenez went 2 for 4 with a double. Alex Bautusta went 1 for 3. Adonis Paula had a triple. Ian Rice also had a double.
With the win, the Hillsboro Hops (18-13) drew into a tie with South Division leading Eugene Emeralds (18-13). Both teams will play Sunday evening for the final game of the three game series. Hillsboro leads it 2-0.
There are eight games left in the second half. Hillsboro has already insured their place in the playoffs by winning the first half of the season. The Hops so far lead the tie breaker in the second half with the Emeralds five games to three in head to head competition but the teams have four more games to play each other before the end of the second half. The next is Sunday and the final three will be played in Hillsboro on September 4th thru 6th. If Hillsboro wins the South’s second half, Eugene will need to stay ahead of the Salem-Keizer Volcanoes for the overall record to meet the Hops in the playoffs. At this moment, Eugene and Salem-Keizer are tied in overall records at 35-34.
By Greg Stoker
@GDStoker
