Tri-City off to Hillsboro after Sunday Heartbreaker

Tantalizingly close to a series split, the Tri-City Dust Devils (24-31) had a Sunday afternoon win slip away when the Eugene Emeralds (30-25) scored twice to sneak out of the Tri-Cities with a 3-2 win at Gesa Stadium, taking the series four games to two.

Finishing up the weekend as the Columbia River Rooster Tails, the home nine took a 2-1 lead to the top of the 9^th inning and asked Cam Minacci (1-3), who came in for the final two outs of the 8^th inning, to finish his tenth save in as many tries. He started his 9^th inning easily enough, inducing an easy fly ball to center to set Eugene down to its final two outs.

C Thomas Gavello then drew a walk, putting the tying run aboard, and RF Tanner O’Tremba followed with a single to right-center to put both the tying and go-ahead runs on at first and second. 1B Garrett Frechette then singled the opposite way, tying the ballgame at 2-2 and ending Minacci’s save streak. The righty rebounded to strike out LF Rodolfo Nolasco but then had to face CF Turner Hill, who had singled in his last two at-bats. Hill then made it three in a row, singling in O’Tremba to give the Emeralds a 3-2 lead.

The Rooster Tails had one more chance to rally and 1B Matt Coutney kicked it off nicely by pulling a grounder through the right side to lead off the bottom of the 9^th. Coutney then moved up to second on a sacrifice bunt by DH Kevin Bruggeman, and to third on a groundout off the end of the bat by SS Chad Stevens. That brought C Caleb Pendleton to the plate, who drove in the second Tri-City run with an RBI single in the 5^th inning that gave the Rooster Tails a 2-1 lead. Eugene reliever Cam Cotter, though, got him to ground out to second to end the game.

Nick Morreale (2-2), who pitched a scoreless 8^th for the Emeralds, got the win, a comeback victory that kept Eugene within a game of first-place Spokane with a possible 11 games left in the Northwest League First Half playoff race.

The game also ended up a rare loss for Tri-City when scoring first, moving their record to 15-4 when they break the ice. The first run of the day came in when Frechette missed a ball hit hard but to him by Coutney that ended up in right field. RF Jorge Ruiz, who singled to lead off the inning, came in on the play for a 1-0 Rooster Tails lead. Emeralds 2B Quinn McDaniel hit a sac fly in the top of the 5^th for a 1-1 tie before Pendleton’s hit took the lead back.

Walbert Ureña went five innings as the Tri-City starter, giving up a run on four hits and striking out three. The talented, hard-throwing righty has now started for the Dust Devils on the last three Sundays on which they have played, giving up a total of four runs in 18 innings of Sunday work.

Tri-City now makes its way back to just west of Portland to take on the Hillsboro Hops in a six-game series beginning Tuesday night at 6:35 p.m. at Hillsboro Ballpark. The Dust Devils have announced right-hander Chris Clark (1-5, 5.23 ERA) as their starter, with the Hops starter yet to be announced at press time. Broadcast coverage of Tuesday 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.