Tri-City Bounces Back, Beats Eugene

The home nine left a tough series opener in the dust Wednesday night at Gesa Stadium, where the Tri-City Dust Devils (23-28) grabbed a 7-2 win over the Eugene Emeralds (27-24) to even the series at a game apiece.

Tri-City starter Chris Clark (1-5) got out of a bases loaded jam in the top of the 1^st inning and went on to offer a six-inning quality start, giving up two runs on four hits and walking only one in his first win as a professional. The Wayne, Pennsylvania native struck out seven in his outing, marking it as his third start in 2024 with at least that many strikeouts.

His teammates gave him early backing, pushing across a pair of runs in the bottom of the 2^nd. DH Cam Williams led off the inning with a line drive double that rolled to the wall in center field, and 3B Andy Blake drew a walk to put two on with no one out. C Ronaldo Flores laid down a sac bunt to move the runners up, putting two in scoring position with one out.

Emeralds starter Trevor McDonald then struggled with control, hitting both LF Joe Stewart and RF Jorge Ruiz with pitches. Ruiz’s hit-by-pitch came with the bases loaded, scoring Williams and giving him an RBI the hard way for a 1-0 lead. CF Werner Blakely then grounded out to the right side, topping a ball to 1B Andrew Kachel that forced him to take the sure out and allow Blake to score for a 2-0 edge.

Eugene would tie the game with their only runs of the night in the top of the 4^th, coming on one swing: a two-run home run by LF Alex Suarez to deep left-center that evened things up at 2-2. The deadlock would not last long, though, with the Dust Devils rallying for three runs to hand Clark the lead back.

The rally started with a one-out hit by Ruiz off Emeralds reliever Daniel Blair (0-5), part of a 2-for-3 night. Blakely walked to move Ruiz up to second, bringing up 2B Kevin Bruggeman, who lined a single to center that scored Ruiz for a 3-2 Tri-City lead. 1B Matt Coutney followed with an RBI single of his own, getting Blakely home to extend the advantage to 4-2, and Bruggeman later scored on a wild pitch to make it 5-2.

Ruiz added an RBI single in the 5^th, scoring Stewart after he singled and stole a base. A 6-2 Dust Devils lead then grew one more time in the 6^th on an extraordinary sacrifice fly. Kevin Bruggeman doubled, joining Ruiz and Coutney with multi-hit games and getting in scoring position with one out. Coutney then hit a fly ball deep to just right of center field, caught on the run at the edge of the warning track by Eugene CF Quinn McDaniel. McDaniel then tripped and fell to the ground, and Bruggeman tagged and sprinted home from second for the seventh and final run.

The bullpen finished the job from there, with righties Jared Southard, Brady Choban and Cam Minacci each throwing scoreless and hitless innings to snuff out any thought of an Emeralds rally.

Game three of the six-game set between Tri-City and Eugene takes place at 6:30 p.m. Thursday night at Gesa Stadium, where fans could have a chance to win prizes in drawings as part of Get Away Night presented by Legends Casino. Right-hander Ryan Costeiu (0-1, 2.61 ERA) heads to the bump for the Dust Devils and righty Manuel Mercedes (2-2, 5.23 ERA) the same for the Emeralds.

Broadcast coverage of Thursday night’s game begins with the pregame show at 6:10 p.m. both here and on the MiLB app, with video coverage on Bally Live and MiLB.tv.

Tickets for the Eugene series, including the upcoming Rooster Tails weekend, 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.