EUGENE, Ore. — The Emeralds have now dropped two of the last three games they have played after setting a Northwest League record for consecutive wins with 14 strait.
Eugene (17-4) struggled with Yakima’s pitching and ended up striking out 18 times against the Bears, which lead to a 3-2 loss in extra innings on Friday night.
Teo Gutierrez, the Bears’ starting pitcher, accounted for eight of the strikeouts in his 5 2/3 innings of work.
“You strike out 18 times in a baseball game, you usually don’t win,” Eugene’s first-year skipper Pat Murphy said. “This is really the first game we should have won and gave it away.”
The Bears’ Danny Pulfer, who played his college baseball at PK Park — home of the Emeralds and Oregon Ducks, looked as if he felt right at home. He accounted for half of his team’s hits and scored the winning run in the 13th inning.
“The kid the last inning, the local kid, ran the bases like he was playing for something,” Murphy said.
The Emeralds scored first in the game in the bottom of the first inning off of a RBI-single by second baseman Cory Spangenberg — which brought in shortstop Jace Peterson — both of which where selected by the San Diego Padres in the first round of June’s MLB draft.
Spangenberg continues to dominate the NWL at the plate. With his 2-for-4 performances that included two walks and a RBI, he continues to rank first in the NWL in batting average (.408), on base percentage (.574), runs scored (18) and doubles with nine.
Eugene tacked on another run in the bottom of the fifth inning to put them up 2-0.
Spangenberg started the two-out rally with a line drive to center field and later scored off of a Kyle Gaedele single.
It looked as if the Emeralds were going to be able to close the game out with the two-run lead entering the seventh inning due to the pitching from Matthew Andriese and William Scott — both pitchers had combined for five hitless innings and six scoreless.
Yakima (7-15) took advantage of relief pitchers Jeremy Gigliotti, who entered the game in the seventh inning, and Luis De La Cruz by evening the score at two runs a piece in the top of the seventh. There were also multiple miscues by the Emeralds’ third baseman Travis Whitmore in the inning.
“We had five miscues in one inning, and gave up two runs,” Murphy said. “That’s the difference in the game. We pitched well enough to win.”
The Bears loaded the bases against Gigliotti with no outs and that is when Eugene’s pitching coach Nelson Cruz pulled Gigliotti for De La Cruz.
Yakima scored on the next at-bat with a sacrifice fly by left fielder Kerry Jenkins — scoring designated hitter Zachary Jones from third base.
The tying run was scored when De La Cruz threw a wild pitch with two outs and Jimmy Comerota scored from third base.
The game remained at two runs apiece until Pulfer scored in the top of the 13th inning when Justin Hilt hit a ground ball to Peterson, which he bobbled and couldn’t make the throw to home plate to slap the tag on the former Duck.
Pulfer got to third on two wild pitches by Emeralds’ relief pitcher Greg Gonzalez after he reached on a single earlier in the inning.
The Emeralds look to get back to their winning ways in game three of the five-game series tonight at PK Park. First pitch is scheduled for 7:05 p.m.
Alan K. Fox can be reached at alanfoxjr@gmail.com or on Twitter @alankfox
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