Big Hits, Little Things Take Dust Devils Past Hops

Major slugging and successful bunting backed a strong performance by starter Walbert Ureña to help the Tri-City Dust Devils (25-35) beat the Hillsboro Hops (31-29) by a score of 6-3 Saturday night at Hillsboro Ballpark.

Tri-City grabbed the lead at their first opportunity, taking a 1-0 lead in the top of the 1^st inning on a two-out RBI single to left by 1B Matt Coutney. 2B Caleb Ketchup, who singled to get aboard, scored easily from third on the play to get the visitors on the board first. The lead turned out a short-lived one, though, when Hillsboro LF Jack Hurley lined a two-run home run over the left field fence to put the Dust Devils behind 2-1 after an inning of play.

After both Ureña (2-5) and Hops starter Logan Clayton (1-3) posted zeroes in the 2^nd and 3^rd innings, Tri-City struck back in the 4^th to retake the lead. Coutney singled to start things off and SS Chad Stevens drew a one-out walk to put runners at first and second. DH Mason Martin came up and lined a full count pitch to the left-center gap for a two-run triple that plated Coutney and Stevens for a 3-2 Dust Devils lead. Later in the frame 3B Cam Williams hit a topspin liner that deflected off Hops SS Juan Corniel and into center to score Martin and push the advantage to 4-2.

Ureña locked things down for Tri-City on the mound, retiring 11 Hillsboro batters in a row at one point and holding them off the scoreboard after the Hurley homer. The righty struck out four and walked only one in his six innings of work, completing his fourth quality start of 2024.

Another big hit added to the Dust Devils lead in the 7^th and again it came off the bat of Coutney, who rode the wind out to left for his fourth home run of the season, a solo shot that extended the lead to 5-2 and gave the left-hand hitting Albertan a three-hit night. The Hops, however, would push a run across in the 8^th on an RBI hit by DH Neyfy Castillo and cut the Tri-City lead to 5-3 heading to the 9^th.

There the Dust Devils would get the run back on a safety squeeze laid down perfectly by Ketchup. Williams, who had singled and advanced to third via a balk and groundout, scored on the squeeze to make it 6-3 to the visitors. Closer Cam Minacci finished the deal from there, bouncing back from two blown saves with a 1-2-3 bottom of the 9^th, ending his team’s six-game losing streak and getting him his Northwest League-leading 11^th save of the season.

Back in the win column, Tri-City now tries to take both weekend games from Hillsboro in the series finale at 1:05 p.m. Sunday afternoon at Hillsboro Ballpark. The Dust Devils will give the start to right-hander Chris Clark (1-6, 4.99 ERA), who pitched well Tuesday night but got the loss. Righty Joe Elbis (4-1, 1.55 ERA), who threw eight shutout innings and got the win Tuesday, takes the ball for the Hops.

Broadcast coverage of Sunday’s game begins with the pregame show at 12:45 p.m. both here and on the MiLB app.

After the six-gamer in Hillsboro concludes the Dust Devils return home to host the Vancouver Canadians for a seven-game series that begins Tuesday, June 18, with a doubleheader of seven-inning games starting at 4:15 p.m. Tickets for the Vancouver 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.