Brick and Mortar Job

On Thursday night, the Hillsboro Hops defeated the Tri-City Dust Devils 6-1 for their second straight win. The Hops flexed their muscles for five runs in the bottom of the sixth. Spencer Brickhouse and Eduardo Diaz fueled the attack with a solo homer each.

Despite getting off to a shaky start, Justin Vernia gave the Hops five strong innings. In the top of the first, the Dust Devils got on the board when Kevin Maitan drove in Carlos Herrera with a single to center field. Tri-City countered with Taylor Ahearn who was scoreless over the first three frames.

Hillsboro answered back in the bottom of the fourth when Brickhouse (8) blasted a high fly ball over the center field fence to tie the game. Meanwhile, Vernia settled into a groove, pitching scoreless ball over his last four innings. Vernia left after five, allowing just one earned run while striking out four.

For the second game in a row, the Hops delivered a five-run inning. Yesterday, coming out of the gate with a five-run first, but tonight the big inning came in the sixth. With the game still tied at one, Diaz (8) connected on a solo blast to left field -- homering in consecutive games. The Hops continued to apply pressure after Andy Yerzy was hit by a pitch and Brickhouse doubled on a line drive to right field. With runners on second and third with no out, a bit of a bad base running gave the Hops two quick outs. Blaze Alexander hit a grounder to second base and Brickhouse was caught into a pickle between second and third, eventually being tagged out trying to get back to second base. To make matters worse, Alexander got caught too far off first base and was tagged out for the strange double play.

Despite the base running blunders, the Hops continued to tee off on Dust Devils new pitcher Kyle Molnar. Yerzy came home on a wild pitch and Tristin English drew a walk. In his Hillsboro Hops debut, Danny Oriente drilled a ground rule double to put runners on second and third. Still with two outs, Nick Dalesandro came through with the clutch base hit to bring in English and Oriente. After Dalesandro (24) stole second base, Cam Coursey drove in the final run of the inning with a line drive single to right field to put the Hops up 6-1.

Hillsboro's bullpen was outstanding, pitching shutout ball from the sixth inning on while only allowing one hit. Nick Snyder took over from Vernia in the sixth and tossed two scoreless innings to earn his second win of the season. Justin Lewis took the Hops the rest of the way with a scoreless eighth and ninth.

Hillsboro (33-40) will play a double header against Tri-City (29-45) tomorrow with the first game starting at 5:05 pm. The make-up game is from a rain out between the Hops and Dust Devils back on June 13. Catch all the action on Rip City Radio 620AM and www.RipCityRadio.com with the pregame coverage beginning at 4:50 pm.