EVERETT — Sunday afternoon Jim Wood gave a presentation on the many different ways a left-handed batter can hit a home run at Everett Memorial Stadium.
Wood homered twice — the homers coming in drastically different manners — to lead the Sox to a 8-2 victory over the Eugene Emeralds.
Wood’s first homer was a screaming line drive that just cleared the fence in right and provided a souvenir for a fan sitting in the homer porch. The AquaSox’s designated hitter’s second home run was a high fly ball that would have been a routine out in most ballparks, but happened to be hit to the shortest point in the park where the scoreboard cuts straight across right-center.
“One was a laser bullet, the other one was an Everett Memorial home run,” a smiling Everett manager Scott Steinmann said. “But we’ll take them whenever we can get them, they all count the same. If you put the ball in play in this ballpark you get good chances.”
And Wood wasn’t apologizing, either.
“It felt good to connect with a couple,” said Wood, who moved into second on the team in homers with eight, two behind leader Jabari Blash. “The second one was courtesy of the field, but I’ll take it.
“That’s what’s going to happen with this ball field,” Wood added. “It’s old, it’s got character, so different things are going to happen.”
Mario Yepez and Ethan Paquette each added two hits, and Jordan Pries pitched 51/3 strong innings to earn the win for Everett (17-9 second half, 33-31 overall), which increased its advantage in the West Division standings to three games.
Paquette had to leave the game in the top of the sixth inning. A low pickoff throw to first by catcher Larry Gonzalez took a bad hop and hit Paquette in the face. Paquette was woozy and bleeding when he was escorted off the field.
Casey McElroy went 2-for-3 to lead Eugene (14-12, 38-26), which won’t feel too bad about falling another game behind the Sox as the Emeralds already clinched a playoff spot by winning the first half.
Eugene manager Pat Murphy decided the game was well out of hand by the eighth when, with the Sox leading 8-2, he brought first baseman Zach Kometani in to pitch. Kometani loaded the bases on two walks and a hit batter, but struck out Blash looking on a 3-2 curveball to record a scoreless inning.
While Wood was making the biggest noise with the bat, Pries was keeping the Emeralds quiet on the mound. The right-hander, who entered the starting rotation 18 days earlier, allowed a single to Jace Peterson leading off the game. He didn’t allow another hit until the sixth as he was able to pinpoint his breaking ball.
Pries ended up allowing two runs on three hits and two walks, striking out eight.
“He mixed his pitches up, he got ahead, he works quick,” Steinmann said of Pries. “When he had guys on he shut down the door on them, so he did a great job.”
Kyle Hunter picked up the save with three near-perfect innings. He allowed just one single and struck out four to earn his first save with the Sox. Hunter has now allowed just one run in 151/3 innings since arriving in Everett.
Everett opened the scoring in the bottom of the second when, with two out, Wood ripped a liner over the fence and into the homer porch in right field, staking the Sox to a 1-0 lead.
The Sox made it 2-0 in the third when Yepez singled up the middle to bring home Paquette from second.
Everett tacked two more on in the fifth, with one run scoring on Marcus Littlewood’s fielder’s choice grounder and another on Blash’s single to make it 4-0.
The Emeralds finally found a chink in Pries’ armor in the sixth. Pries had allowed just one hit to that point, but McElroy’s RBI double got Eugene on the board, then Travis Whitmore’s broken-bat single off reliever Nolan Diaz brought home McElroy as the Emeralds cut the lead to 4-2.
But the Sox put the game away after that. Wood hit his second homer in the sixth, then Everett scored three more in the seventh on a bases-loaded walk and two sacrifice flies to provide the final margin.
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