Hops Take Series Finale Against Eugene

The Eugene Emeralds dropped the series finale against the Hops by a final score of 7-1. With the loss today the Emeralds take a series split this week in Hillsboro. The Ems record now sits at 61-59 on the season and 27-27 in the 2nd half.

The Hops jumped out to a 5-0 lead through the first five innings. The Hops scored their first run of the game after Christian Cerda came home to score on a wild pitch. The hops then added two more runs in the bottom of the fourth. Gino Groover led off the inning with a triple and Andrew Pintar doubled to score Groover on the play. With two outs Manuel Pena ripped a single up the middle to give the Hops the 3-0 lead. In the fifth the Hops added two more runs. Wilderd Patino started off the inning with a walk and was able to steal 2nd and 3rd base. Jack Hurley also reached via walk and stole 2nd base. Gino Groover hit a sac-fly RBI to score Patino on the play and Hurley came home to score on a wild pitch to give the Hops the 5-0 lead through 5 innings.

In the top of the 6th inning the Emeralds scored their 1st and only run of the night. Brett Auerbach hit a 1-out single and with two outs Aeverson Arteaga drove him in on a base hit. The Emeralds were trailing by four runs and had the bases loaded with 2-outs, but they weren’t able to do anything with it and they trailed 5-1 through 6 innings. The Hops scored their final two runs of the game in the bottom of the 7th inning. With two outs Christian Cerda delivered a base hit out to right field to score Jack Hurley and Tommy Troy on the play and gave the Hops a 7-1 lead.

The next two frames were scoreless for both ball clubs and the Hops took the series finale by a final score of 7-1. Hayden Wynja got the start for Eugene and pitched 4.1 innings and allowed 4 hits and 5 earned runs while striking out 4 batters. Matt Mikulski pitched 1.2 innings and gave up just 1 hit and didn’t allow a single walk or run. Cam Cotter pitched the 7th inning and gave up 2 hits and 2 runs. Those 2 runs for Cotter were both unearned runs. Tanner Kiest pitched a scoreless 8th inning where he gave up just 1 hit.

The Emeralds will head into the final two weeks of the season either 4 or 5 games out of a playoff spot depending on the result of the AquaSox game tonight. It’s the home stretch for the Emeralds as they’ll need to find a way to rattle off some wins if they want to find themselves in the postseason.

The Emeralds open a 6-game series at home on Tuesday night against the Dust Devils with first pitch at 6:35 P.M. It’s the final regular season homestand of the year for Eugene.