Jimmy Brasoban pitched four flawless innings, looking to be well on his way to pitching the Emeralds to a win. Then the fifth inning happened. Spokane plated five runs in the frame, spelling the end of Brasoban’s night and giving the visiting Indians all the runs they would need en route to a 5-0 victory.
Janluis Castro led off with a line drive single to left field, breaking up Brasoban’s no-hit bid. He quickly came around to score on Jamie Jarmon’s two-run homer, breaking up the scoreless tie. The next two batters would keep the theme running. Eduard Pinto hit a line drive single of his own to left field and was followed by Joe Jackson, of the shoed variety, and he hit a second two-run home run of the inning. Marcus Greene added yet another run with two outs, singling home Evan Van Hoosier.
“We had one bad inning,” manager Jim Gabella said following the loss. “[Brasoban] made a poor pitch to Jarmon … he threw a changeup, he sped his bat up and the guy hit the ball out of the ballpark. He throws him a fastball there and who knows, it could be still nothing-nothing, you never know.”
Brasoban (2-3) is in the midst of an All-Star season and has been a reliable starter for the Ems for most of the year, but the long ball hurt him tonight and he was pulled after 4.1 innings. Tyler Hale was strong in long relief, tossing 3.2 shutout innings, allowing two hits with no walks and two strikeouts.
“He did a great job for us. Kept us in the ballgame even though we didn’t score any runs, kept us in the game and gave us a chance to try to do something and saved the bullpen for us,” Gabella said. “Just a great job by him.”
Hale joined the Ems late in July and has been impressive in six relief appearances, giving up a single run over 9.1 innings, good for a 0.96 ERA.
Eugene’s offense struggled to put much of anything together Monday night, totaling four hits in the game. Indians starter Kelvin Vasquez (1-2) threw 5.2 innings of two-hit ball, walking three and striking out four along the way. The walks gave the Ems some opportunities to make some noise in the run column, but to no avail.
“[Vasquez] had good stuff,” Gabella said of the Spokane starter. “He was 95 [MPH] with life on it … you gotta give him credit … he’s got a good arm.”
The Ems looked like they might start a rally in the ninth when Trae Santos and Ryan Miller led off the inning with back-to-back hits. Indians reliever Travis Dean ultimately shut the door on the game and the series.
With 20 games remaining in the regular season, the pennant race is in full force. Eugene is three games out of first and is no way out of it yet.
“We’re right in it,” Gabella said. “We gotta keep doing what we did here at home … keep getting good pitching and timely hitting. If we do that we’ll be okay.”