The Vancouver Canadians came away with a doubleheader spilt with a 3-1 loss and a 7-5 victory over the Eugene Emeralds at P.K. Park on Saturday.
In Game 1, the Emeralds broke a 1-1 tie in their final at-bat in the bottom of the sixth against Canadians reliever Justin Kelly. Jack Payton started the inning with a double that eluded a diving Jaden Rudd in right-center field. Pinch-runner Tanner Hill was able to come home when a throwing error by Jeff Wehler skipped past Brennan Orf at first base on a ground ball by Tanner O’Tremba. Quinn McDaniel singled to left to score O’Tremba with the insurance run.
The C’s scored the first run of the day in the top of the fourth inning against Emeralds starter Manuel Mercedes. A 4-6 fielder’s choice by Orf led to the force out of a Jeff Wehler leadoff walk at second. Dylan Rock singled to left and moved up a base with Orf on a Jean Arnaez grounder to first. Rudd brought in Orf with an infield single to second but Rock was cut down at the plate on a 4-2 play to end the rally.
That lead barely lasted into the bottom of the fourth when Tanner O’Tremba cleared the left-center field just two pitches into the frame off C’s reliever Grayson Thurman.
C-Notes – Game 1
Ryan Jennings managed to put up three shutout innings in Game 1 but had a lot of traffic on the bases. A McDaniel one-out single and a pair of two-out walks to Matt Higgins and Zach Morgan were sandwiched with strikeouts of Diego Velasquez looking and Scott Bandura swinging in the first inning.
A Justin Wishkoski leadoff walk and a two-out hit by pitch of Andrew Kachel and a walk by McDaniel were stranded on a Velasquez line out to second in the second inning. A pair of one-out free passes by Morgan and Bandura were left on when Payton lined out to second to end the third.
The C’s had a chance to score earlier in the game when Orf doubled to left and Jean Arnaez walked with two outs in the second inning. The two runners moved up 90 feet on a balk by Mercedes but they were left on base when Rudd struck out.
A Jommer Hernández leadoff walk and a Dasan Brown infield single to short started the top of the third. A 5-3 double play ball from Ryan McCarty resulted in Brown getting to second but Nick Goodwin lined out to short for the third out.
Another wasted opportunity for the Vancouver offence came in the sixth against Eugene reliever Matt Mikulski. A Rock walk and a ground-rule double to left by Arnaez put two runners in scoring position with nobody out but the C’s could not bring anyone in. Rudd and Hernández struck out and Brown flew out to left to end the inning.
Game 2 Recap
The Canadians scored the game’s first run again against Em’s starter Seth Lonsway in the third. Arnaez opened the frame with a leadoff walk and advanced to second when Justin Bench dropped a ground ball to allow Estiven Machado to reach base. With one away, Machado was forced out on a 6-4 fielder’s choice by Brown to put runners at the corners. Lonsway uncorked a wild pitch that glanced off of the chest protector of Onil Perez and went up the first base side. That allowed Arnaez to race home with the game’s first run. McCarty picked up the C’s first hit of the game with a single to left past a diving Bench at third and Brown slid home safely to beat the throw to make it 2-0 Vancouver.
The top of the fourth saw the Canadians get on the board again. Wehler beat out a chopper to the mound and got an infield single against Lonsway’s throw pulling first baseman Garrett Frechette off the bag. Jackson Hornung singled to left on a hit-and-run to get Wehler over to third. A one-out sacrifice fly by Arnaez got Wehler home to put Vancouver up by three.
Monty’s Mounties padded their lead in the fifth. Rudd had a ground-rule double to right-center and scored on a Brown base hit to right. Lonsway’s night was done when McCarty singled to left past a diving Wishkoski at short. Tyler Vogel took over on the bump and his first pitch was taken out of the yard to right-center field by Goodwin to put the C’s ahead 7-0.
According to the MiLB.TV broadcast, Goodwin’s 373-foot homer left the yard at 103 miles per hour.
Eugene would chip away in the bottom of the fifth against C’s starter Rafael Sánchez. His string of 10 straight batters was snapped when Thomas Gavello doubled to right, advanced to third on a Bench grounder to short and tagged up to go home on a sac fly by Frechette.
The bottom of the sixth saw another leadoff double off Sánchez in the form of a two-bagger to left that put Hill aboard. A McDaniel infield single to short moved Hill to third base. McDaniel stole second and would come home with Hill on a double to right by Kachel. Another RBI double to center by Wishkowski made it a 7-4 game. Sánchez struck out Gavello for the second out. Anders Tolhurst ended the frame by getting Bech to pop out to third.
The Emeralds took one more run at it in the seventh when Alexander Suarez singled to left and he came home on a Hill double to right to make it a two-run game. That was the last time Eugene put a ball in play as he struck out McDaniel looking and Kachel swinging on a 3-2 pitch to end the game.
C-Notes – Game 2
Sánchez found the win column for the first time as a Vancouver Canadian after going 0-8 last season. He allowed four runs on six hits and a walk over 5-2/3 innings but struck out seven and got four groundball outs. Tolhurst got his second save of the year by getting the final four outs with just one run on his ledger.
Sánchez had to turn away an Emeralds threat in the first inning. A single to right with one out and a steal of second base put McDaniel in scoring position with two outs. McDaniel wound up stealing third on a Perez walk before Perez took second himself. Sánchez got out of trouble when Wishkoski fouled out to first on a check swing.
The Canadians and Emeralds play the series finale at 6:05 p.m. on Sunday. Pat Gallagher gets the ball for Vancouver. Tyler Zickel will call the action from P.K. Park on CanadiansBaseball.com. The game is also on MiLB.TV.
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