Playing with only the motivation to pack their bags and leave Boise, Idaho, the Emeralds lost to the Hawks by a final score of 8-3 resulting in a 3-game series sweep for Boise. Using a mixture of poor pitching, bad defense and a lack of offense, the Emeralds appeared out-gunned and out-matched throughout the entirety of their visit against the Hawks.
After giving up a leadoff walk to Emeralds’ center fielder Ronnie Richardson, Boise starting pitcher Dillon Maples settled down and attacked the ice cold Eugene lineup. Maples got out of the top of the first with a strikeout and a double play ground ball to end the frame. Then the Hawks offense went to work. Facing Emeralds starting pitcher Valdimir De La Cruz, Boise lead off hitter Kevin Encarnacion scored in the bottom of the inning thanks to a sloppy Emeralds error to give the Hawks their first opening lead of the series. In the previous two games it was the Emeralds who got on the scoreboard first, but ultimately failed to retain their early lead. Boise however, would retain and later add to their early lead.
In the bottom of the 2nd, the Hawks picked off right where they left off in the previous inning. Boise started the inning by loading the bases before a double play scored Rony Rodriguez to give the Hawks a 2-0 advantage.
At this point in the game, Eugene remained in striking distance of the Hawks, but the bottom of the 3rd is where the pitching staff really imploded. Hawks catcher Lance Rymel started the scoring barrage with his first home run of the season, a 2-run blast that cleared the wall in left field. Then Encarnacion struck a two-run single that scored David Bote and Carlos Penalver to make the score 6-0.
Eugene surrendered another 2 runs in the bottom of the 5th to push the deficit to 8. In the following inning the Emeralds showed life for the first time in the entire series. The Ems’ answered in the top of the 6th with 2 runs to breakthrough the Boise shutout making the score 8-2. The Ems would add another run in the top of the 8th, but the Hawks lead would prove to be insurmountable.
Though De La Cruz and Tayron Guerrero combined to give up 8 runs on the evening, the Ems’ bullpen held the red hot Hawks offense to essentially nothing for the rest of the game. Genison Reyes, Josh Richardson and Adam Cimber allowed only a single hit and combined for 5 strikeouts in 3.1 innings pitched to keep the Hawks from crossing home plate.
The Ems wont have very long to sit back and think about what went wrong the last 3 games as they start their next road series with the Everett Aquasox on Friday night. Eugene will send out Erik Schoenrock to face Everett with hopes of ending their current five game losing streak. Schoenrock is currently 2-3 with a 2.79 ERA in 11 games pitched for the Emeralds. Schoerock will face off against Jake Zokan who is 3-3 on the year for the Aquasox.