Leenhouts fans 11, flirts with perfection

Friday night was an unusually long one for bullpens in Eugene. Andrew Leenhouts wanted to make sure his would have a chance to get some rest.

The Giants prospect established career highs with 11 strikeouts over seven innings, but it wasn't enough as Short-Season Salem-Keizer fell to the Emeralds, 2-1, in walk-off fashion.

"A couple starts ago, I had a rough outing," said Leenhouts. "I only went a third of an inning, but my last two starts have been big for me. And last night, we went 14 innings (a 5-4 Volcanoes win), so it was good to be able to give the bullpen a rest tonight."

The 24-year-old left-hander was perfect through five innings on Saturday night, fanning six and recording four outs on the ground to go with five in the air. In fact, he allowed only two balls to leave the infield.

"This is actually my first time working with this catcher, Jared Deacon," Leenhouts said. "He just came up about a week ago and it was nice to click right away with him. We were on the same page, so it was nice to have that going. I guess I was around the zone enough that I was able to be in control of the game."

The Volcanoes gave their southpaw a lead when Will Callaway led off the third inning with an inside-the-park homer, his first of the year. That margin held until the sixth when Trae Santos broke up the perfect game with a leadoff homer of his own.

Leenhouts pitched one more inning and allowed one more hit but didn't walk a batter in seven innings. Over his last two starts, the southpaw has allowed a run on four hits over 13 innings, striking out 17 without issuing a walk. They followed an outing in which he retired one batter and surrendered five runs -- three earned -- on five hits on June 18 at Hillsboro.

"I really just tried to simplify things," Leenhouts said. "I think I was just trying to do too much. I was here last year, so it's a lot of pressure to try to have a good season and move up. I was just really trying to simplify things the last couple starts."

Although he gave most of his relievers a rest, Saturday night again came down to the bullpens. In the ninth, the Emeralds loaded the bases against Jacob McCasland (0-3) before Steven Neff walked Marcus Davis to force home the winning run.

"I actually had one of the relievers come up to me and give me a hug after the game," Leenhouts said. "It's getting to that time of the season for us. It matters when guys are pitching and how often. To be able to give them some rest after a late night, they really appreciated it."

Emeralds starter Adrian De Horta limited Salem-Keizer to a run on three hits over five innings. Three relievers followed, with Max Beatty (1-0) working a perfect ninth for the victory.