The Vancouver Canadians losing streak is up to four after a 7-4 setback to the Eugene Emeralds at P.K. Park Friday.
Yet another home run started the scoring for the Emeralds as Luis Toribio took Sem Robberse deep to right-center field with two outs in the second to give Eugene a 1-0 lead.
The Canadians finally scored in the seventh against Emeralds reliever Abel Adames. A one-out walk by Alex De Jesus was pushed up to second when Damiano Palmegiani was hit by a pitch near the left shoulder. A base hit to left by Rainer Nuñez scored De Jesus with the tying run. Brooks Crawford took over for Adames and he served up a three-run homer to left to Riley Tirotta to put the C’s ahead 4-1.
The Emeralds stormed back in the bottom of the eighth against Connor Cooke. Max Wright singled to right on a 3-2 pitch and Simon Whiteman reached base on a 2-2 pitch from Connor Cooke with an infield single to third. Carter Williams then singled to center after Alex De Jesus could not handle the ball at short and that scored Wright with the Emeralds second run. Once again, the inability of the C’s pitchers to keep the ball within the confines of P.K. Park came back to haunt them as Jairo Pomares put one over the fence in right field to give Eugene the lead for good. Andy Thomas singled on Cooke’s next pitch to left and after pinch-runner Vaun Brown stole second base, Toribio belted a two-out, two-run shot to right-center.
C-Notes
The Canadians bats were shut down by Nick Swiney over the first five innings and by Brett Standlee in the sixth. It was only until De Jesus’ one-out walk in the seventh that the C’s finally got a baserunner. Hiraldo drew a walk after Tirotta’s homer and stole second base but was thrown out trying to steal third by Emeralds catcher Patrick Bailey. Andrés Sosa drew a walk but Garrett Spain hit into an unassisted fielder’s choice to short.
Dasan Brown singled to right and stole second with one out in the eighth but Crawford struck out the side as he got Glenn Santiago, De Jesus and Palmegiani all swinging.
Nuñez got aboard with a leadoff single to short off Juan Sanchez in the ninth inning. After Tirotta and Miguel Hiraldo struck out swinging, Sosa reached base on a throwing error by Sanchez and Spain walked to load the bases but Santiago popped up to short to end the game. Vancouver was 2-for-5 with RISP and left five men on base.
The C’s had just four hits, two of them by Nuñez. The others were by Tirotta and Brown. De Jesus, Hiraldo, Sosa and Spain all drew walks with Hiraldo stealing his 26th base before getting caught for the fourth time this year.
Robberse limited the Emeralds to one run on two hits and a walk and struck out four over five frames. He stranded a two-out double to left by Luis Matos by striking out Williams to end the third inning. The last baserunner he allowed was a two-out walk to Thomas in the fourth.
Despite Robberse’s best efforts, the C’s have not gotten a win from their starter since Robberse got the W against Hillsboro July 13.
Matt Svanson worked a one-hit sixth and struck out a batter while T.J. Brock struck out two batters for a perfect seventh in his C’s debut. Cooke took the loss by giving up six runs on six hits over two-thirds of an inning. Infielder Hugo Cardona was called off the bench to get the final out of the inning as he got Jimmy Glowenke to fly out to right.
The only good news Friday is that the C’s remain one-half game back of Spokane in the overall standings for second place after Spokane lost in Hillsboro. The Canadians are at 53-49 overall and now trail Eugene by 2-1/2 games for top spot in the second half standings at 23-16. Speaking of Spokane, there will be a doubleheader at Avista Stadium on Wednesday, August 31 to make up for the rained out game at Nat Bailey Stadium between the two teams July 2.
The Canadians will go with Trenton Wallace while the Emeralds counter with Carson Seymour Saturday. The game is on CanadiansBaseball.com and MiLB.TV beginning at 5:05 p.m.
C-Tweets
C's Plus Baseball | A Vancouver Canadians Blog 