Tri-City Pitching Masterful in Series-Opening Win in Eugene
Starting pitcher Jorge Marcheco combined with relievers Leonard Garcia and Cam Minacci to retire 26 of the last 27 batters they faced in a 3-1 win for the Tri-City Dust Devils (10-17) over the Eugene Emeralds (18-9) Tuesday night at PK Park. Marcheco (2-2) allowed one run (unearned) on three
Starting pitcher Jorge Marcheco combined with relievers Leonard Garcia and Cam Minacci to retire 26 of the last 27 batters they faced in a 3-1 win for the Tri-City Dust Devils (10-17) over the Eugene Emeralds (18-9) Tuesday night at PK Park.
Marcheco (2-2) allowed one run (unearned) on three hits in a six-inning quality start, striking out three and walking none. The run came in the bottom of the 1st inning, on a sacrifice fly by Eugene C Onil Perez that followed back-to-back infield singles and a passed ball moving a runner to third. From there Marcheco allowed only a one-out 4th inning bloop single, retiring the final seven batters he faced.
Garcia followed by striking out three in two perfect innings, with the lefty from Venezuela stretching his start of the season without an earned run to 12.2 innings out of the bullpen. Minacci then completed a 1-2-3 9th inning in only seven pitches, giving the righty his fourth save and closing a stretch of 16 Emeralds batters put out in a row to finish the game.
Tri-City’s offense came in a three-run top of the 4th inning started by 3B Matt Coutney’s first home run of 2024, a long blast onto the roof of the batting cages well past the right field fence. 1B Mason Martin doubled later in the inning, followed by an infield hit by CF Werner Blakely. A two-out walk to DH Joe Stewart loaded the bases, and SS Caleb Ketchup lined a single to left that scored both Martin and Blakely for the 3-1 lead that held to the end.
Coutney (2-2, HR, 2B, 2 BB), Martin (2-3, 2 2B, BB) and Ketchup (2-4, 2 RBI) put together multi-hit games for the Dust Devils, who won their first series-opening game of the season to start out on the right foot. The defense made several solid plays as well, rebounding from their seven-error Saturday night loss to Vancouver by going errorless in Tuesday night’s contest.
Game two of the six-game series between Tri-City and Eugene takes place at 7:05 p.m. Wednesday night at PK Park. Right-hander Walbert Ureña (0-3, 4.91 ERA) will make his second start of the year for the Dust Devils in the Northwest League’s southernmost outpost, challenging Emeralds righty Manuel Mercedes (0-1, 6.27 ERA).
Broadcast coverage of the game begins with the pregame show at 6:45 p.m, both here and on the MiLB app.
Tri-City returns home to Gesa Stadium for a six-game series with the Hillsboro Hops beginning next Tuesday, May 14. Tickets for the Hillsboro series are on sale now, with special ticket rates available for groups of 20 or more. For more information on Dust Devils single game, season, mini-plan (11, 22, 33) and group tickets, visit the team’s official ticketing site, dustdevilsbaseball.com.