Elbis Does Not Leave Building Fast Enough for Dust Devils
Hillsboro Hops (28-28) starter Joe Elbis left Tri-City Dust Devils (24-32) batters all shook up and with suspicious minds Tuesday night, throwing eight shutout innings in a 3-0 win to open a six-game series at Hillsboro Ballpark. The repertoire of Elbis (4-1), the Northwest League’s Pitcher of the Month for
Hillsboro Hops (28-28) starter Joe Elbis left Tri-City Dust Devils (24-32) batters all shook up and with suspicious minds Tuesday night, throwing eight shutout innings in a 3-0 win to open a six-game series at Hillsboro Ballpark.
The repertoire of Elbis (4-1), the Northwest League’s Pitcher of the Month for May, proved too much for Tri-City bats to solve, leaving the visitors searching for a good luck charm or anything that would prevent them from going down a long, lonely highway to a third straight defeat. In the end, though, the Dust Devils managed only three hits off Elbis, who kept pitches way down in the strike zone and made it difficult for Tri-City hitters for at least one night by striking out eight.
Dust Devils starter Chris Clark (1-6) again found himself in a heartbreak hotel of tough-luck loss, giving up only two runs and striking out six Hops in six innings of work. So far this year Clark has made three starts against Hillsboro, all ending up losses despite two of them (including tonight’s effort) being quality starts (at least 6 IP, 3 ER or fewer). The non-quality start saw the righty go 5.2 innings in a loss to the Hops May 15 at Gesa Stadium.
Though the game had been a tough one offensively for Tri-City, they still held hopes of bringing it back to their win column, especially in the top of the 8th. C Caleb Pendleton and LF Joe Stewart had both singled to bring the tying run to the plate in the person of SS Caleb Ketchup, who hit a fly ball to left in hopes of getting his team on the board. Hillsboro LF Jack Hurley came in to make the catch and snuff out the late threat.
Seeing it was now or never in the 9th inning, the Dust Devils made one more push when Hops reliever Alfred Morillo walked both DH Matt Coutney, whose base-on-balls extended his on-base streak to 20 games, and RF Jadiel Sanchez. That brought the potential tying run to the plate in 1B Mason Martin, who hit his first home run for his hometown team against Hillsboro back on May 15th at Gesa Stadium, but Morillo struck him out to end the game and clinch his first save of 2024.
Finally, the night saw Jorge Ruiz make his return to center field for the first time since May 24 in Everett. The young outfielder made a solid running catch in deep center field to prevent Hops DH Neyfy Castillo from reaching base a third time.
Tri-City and Hillsboro meet for game two of the weeklong series at 6:35 p.m. Wednesday night at Hillsboro Ballpark. Right-hander Ryan Costeiu (0-1, 2.77 ERA) goes to the bump for the Dust Devils, while the Hops send left-hander Spencer Giesting (4-3, 1.70 ERA) to the mound. Broadcast coverage of Wednesday night’s game begins with the pregame show at 6:15 p.m. both here and on the MiLB app.
After the six-gamer in Hillsboro Tri-City returns home to host the Vancouver Canadians for a seven-game series that begins 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.