Big Inning Befalls Dust Devils Again
Starter Walbert Ureña battled through a quality start and DH Cam Williams homered to help the cause but the Tri-City Dust Devils (0-6 2H) once more fell victim to a big inning for the Eugene Emeralds (3-3 2H), who scored five 8th inning runs on the way to an 8-4
Starter Walbert Ureña battled through a quality start and DH Cam Williams homered to help the cause but the Tri-City Dust Devils (0-6 2H) once more fell victim to a big inning for the Eugene Emeralds (3-3 2H), who scored five 8th inning runs on the way to an 8-4 win Thursday night at PK Park.
Ureña (2-6) faced the minimum in five of his six innings of work, only running into issues in the bottom of the 2nd. There Eugene C Zach Morgan made the righty pay for a pair of walks by sending one deep out to left field for a three-run home run that gave the Emeralds an early 3-0 lead. Ureña held the line from there, racking up seven of his eight strikeouts in his last four innings and allowing only one baserunner over that span.
Williams’s homer came in the top of the 7th inning, a missile-esque liner that got over the wall in left for his seventh home run of the season. The two-run shot scored 3B Chad Stevens, who had singled in front of the switch-hitting hammer, and made it a 3-2 game to the bottom of the 8th.
Like Tuesday night it was there that things unraveled for Tri-City. A pair of singles by LF Alex Suarez and 2B Quinn McDaniel, with a wild pitch in between, provided Eugene an insurance run and stretched the lead to 4-2. The game remained in bloop-and-blast territory for the Dust Devils to two outs in the 8th and the bases loaded for 3B Thomas Gavello. The lefty, who hit a three-run homer in the 8th on Tuesday night, again threw a decisive blow with a grand slam over the wall in right field to push their lead to 8-2.
Tri-City would not go down without a fight, though, putting a pair of runs on the board in the 9th on a two-run single by CF Joe Redfield to bring it back to an 8-4 game. The Dust Devils needed to get one more runner on to bring the tying run to the plate, but SS Adrian Placencia grounded a ball down the first base line ruled fair and grabbed by 1B Garrett Frechette while in contact with the base for the final out to end the game.
Emeralds starter Cesar Perdomo (1-0) made his High-A debut by two-hitting the visitors over five innings to get the win.
Game four of the six-gamer between Tri-City and Eugene gets going at 6:35 p.m. Friday night at PK Park. Right-hander Chris Clark (1-7, 5.67 ERA) goes to the mound for the Dust Devils and another righty, Trevor McDonald (0-1, 4.97 ERA), will start for the Emeralds.
Broadcast coverage of Friday night’s tilt begins with the pregame show at 6:15 p.m. both here and on the MiLB app.
Tri-City returns home for an abbreviated three-game series with the Spokane Indians starting Monday, July 1 at Gesa Stadium. Tickets for the Spokane 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.