The Vancouver Canadians lost their series against the Eugene Emeralds after a 2-1 setback at P.K. Park on Sunday.
The Emeralds scored the winning run in the eighth. Jack Payton singled to left off C’s reliever Josh Mollerus. Payton moved up to second base on a groundout to second by Justin Wishkoski. With two away, Chay Yeager entered the game for Vancouver but a passed ball moved Payton to third before Quinn McDaniel hit a ground-rule double to right that scored Payton with the winning run.
The first run of the game was scored by Eugene in the top of the fifth against Vancouver starter Pat Gallagher. A Tanner O’Tremba one-out infield single to third, two wild pitches and a Payton groundout brought O’Tremba all the way around the bases.
The C’s finally scored in the top of the seventh against Em’s reliever Julio Rodriguez. Dasan Brown doubled to left, went to third on a Ryan McCarty grounder to second and scored on a Payton passed ball.
C-Notes
The C’s were only slightly better against Em’s starter Dylan Cumming and reliever Nick Sinacola on Sunday. After being no-hit by those two pitchers in the series opener on Tuesday, the C’s did get a hit when Brennan Orf was credited with an infield single to short with one out in the second. Orf was then forced out on the front end of a 6-4-3 inning double play by Jean Arnaez.
After Cummings struck out the side in the third to end his day while facing the minimum, Sinacola came in and appeared to have surrendered a leadoff double to Brown in the top of the fourth. However, Brown missed the first base bag and the Emeralds appealed the play, resulting in Brown being called out.
The Canadians did manage to get an extra-bases knock with one out in the sixth when Jaden Rudd tripled to right field. Rudd would then get doubled off when Machado hit a soft pop fly to third.
Machado did lead off the ninth with a double to right off Emeralds reliever Seth Corry and got to third on a wild pitch. A one-out walk to McCarty followed and the former Penn State Abington stole second with two outs. Jackson Hornung—who singled in the seventh—hit a chopper to the mound and Corry grabbed the ball and ran to first base himself to record the final out of the game.
Gallagher and Hornung teamed up to navigate their way through a challenging first inning. Turner Hill started the frame with an infield single to third but Hornung threw him out trying to steal second. After striking out McDaniel, Diego Velasquez made it aboard on a bunt single but Gallagher picked him off for the third out.
A perfect second inning was capped off for Gallagher with a called strikeout of O’Treman but Matt Higgins opened the third with a double to right field. A passed ball moved Higgins up to third with two outs but Gallagher struck out Hill to turn the Emeralds away.
In the fourth, Gallagher faced the minimum after inducing a 4-3 double play to eradicate a Velasquez single to second.
The end of the line for Gallagher came with one out in the sixth when McDaniel hit a ground-rule double to left center. Rafael Ohashi took over and surrendered a single to center by McDaniel to put runners on the corners. The Emeralds tried to steal a run but McDaniel was cut down at the plate on a 2-4-2 play executed by Hornung and McCarty.
Velasquez then flew out to center to leave Velasquez at second.
Mollerus relieved Ohashi in the seventh and struck out O’Tremba swinging and Higgins looking to punctuate a perfect frame but taking the hard-luck loss in the eighth.
Vancouver is back home on Tuesday to open a six-game series against the Spokane Indians. Chris McElvain is slated to get the ball on the slope for Vancouver. Game time is 7:05 p.m. at Nat Bailey Stadium. The game is on CanadiansBaseball.com and MiLB.TV with Tyler Zickel and Chris Georges on the call.
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