Herald staff
EUGENE, Ore. – This season, if the Everett AquaSox are losing after the seventh inning, the victory has been pretty much out of their reach.
That trend held true on Sunday, as a late AquaSox rally in the eighth inning wasn’t enough to push Everett past the Eugene Emeralds, losing 6-4 in Northwest League play.
Everett is now 0-15 this year when trailing after seven innings.
With the loss, the AquaSox (25-27) are now seven games behind division leader Salem-Keizer. Everett opens a three-game series at Salem-Keizer beginning tonight at 7:05 p.m.
Eugene (21-31) is now only four games behind Everett for third place in the West Division.
Eugene scored four runs in the bottom of the fourth inning off of Everett starting pitcher Gus Martinez (4-2) to go ahead 5-0, which proved to be enough.
The Sox had a chance to tie the score in the top of the eighth, but came up one hit short.
Tim Merritt and Greg Dobbs led of the AquaSox eighth with back-to-back singles. Orlando Hernandez followed with a double off the left-field wall to score Merritt and cut the Emeralds’ lead to 5-3.
One out later, Eddie Figueroa hit a slow ground ball to shortstop, allowing Dobbs to score from third on the out, for a 5-4 Everett deficit.
With two outs and Hernandez on third base, pinch-hitter Manny Santana hit a high pop fly into the AquaSox bullpen, where a diving Santos Encarnacion caught it to end the inning.
Eugene’s David Castillo, a .143 hitter this season, hit his first professional home run in the bottom of the eighth to give the Emeralds a 6-4 advantage.
Martinez began the fourth well enough, striking out Nick Trzesniak for the first out. Eugene’s Trevor Brown followed with a solo home run over the left-field fence to give the Emeralds a 2-0 lead on their first base hit.
After Encarnacion hit a ground ball for the second out of the inning, Martinez gave up three consecutive singles to load the bases.
With the bases loaded and two outs, Everett catcher Eddie Olszta got his signals crossed, expecting Martinez to throw the next batter, John DiBetta, a breaking ball but allowing a fastball to get by him. That allowed the runner from third base to come home for a 3-0 Eugene edge.
DiBetta walked to reload the bases, and Eugene’s next batter, Jake Gautreau, made it 5-0 with a two-run single.
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