EVERETT — Thursday night the Everett AquaSox used a home run that barely cleared the fence in left field to defeat the Tri-City Dust Devils.
Friday night the Dust Devils returned the favor.
Taylor Featherston’s homer that just squeezed over the fence stunted Everett’s momentum, and th
e Sox’s comeback attempt fell short in an 8-5 loss at Everett Memorial Stadium.
The victory gave Tri-City a 2-1 lead in the five-game series between the Northwest League’s two division leaders.
“We had a couple opportunities early with runners in scoring position, we struck out a couple times,” Everett manager Scott Steinmann lamented. “We have to put the ball in play a little better in those situations. But they played very well tonight and we just came up on the short end of the stick.”
Friday’s game had an eerie symmetry to Thursday’s. Thursday night Everett’s Mike Dowd lofted a solo shot to left that just dropped over the fence, snapping a 3-3 tie in a game Everett eventually won 4-3. But this time it was Tri-City’s turn.
Everett had just cut a four-run deficit to one, with Marcus Littlewood’s two-run bomb in the bottom of the seventh inning making it a new game at 6-5.
However, Tri-City ended Everett’s comeback bid the next half inning, and it was Featherston’s homer that was the key blow. With one out and nobody on Featherston lined a pitch from Everett reliever Joe DiRocco deep to left. It didn’t appear the ball had quite enough altitude to get over the fence. But the ball just eluded the rise in the fence and snuck over. A foot further to the right and the ball hits the wall, limiting Featherston to a double.
“It just squeaked over, got between the Speedway sign and the championship sign out there,” Steinmann said. “I was trying to push it right a little bit. It does stop our momentum a little and gives it back to them. This game is a game of little momentums throughout the game, and they got it swinging their way there.”
The Dust Devils went on to score two more runs in the inning, and Tri-City reliever Ken Roberts worked out of jams in both the eighth and ninth to secure the victory.
David Hernandez went 3-for-4 with three RBI and Brian Humphries added three hits for Tri-City (12-5 second half, 34-21 overall), which maintained its four-game lead in the East Division.
Littlewood, Dowd and Jim Wood each had two hits for Everett (10-7, 26-29), which now finds itself in a tie for first in the West Division with Salem-Keizer.
Tri-City starter Ben Alsup gave up runs early and late in his outing, but cruised in between to pick up the win and improve to 3-1. He ended up allowing five runs in 62/3 innings. He gave up seven hits and three walks and struck out seven.
Everett starting pitcher Jordan Shipers had an indifferent outing in falling to 1-5. The left-hander gave up three runs on seven hits over five innings, striking out three.
The Sox got off to a dream start as the first two Everett batters of the game reached base and scored. Jharmidy De Jesus’ long single to right-center brought both runners home as the Sox staked themselves to an early 2-0 advantage.
It seemed Everett was in for a big night offensively, but Alsup recovered and kept the Sox from threatening again until the sixth. Meanwhile, the Dust Devils rallied to build a lead. Richard Pirkle’s sacrifice fly in the second pulled Tri-City within one, then an RBI fielder’s choice by Featherston and a two-run single by Hernandez in the fourth gave the Dust Devils the lead.
Tri-City tacked on two more in the sixth on two-out RBI singles by Hernandez and Humphries to seemingly take control. But an error by Featherston at short in the bottom of the sixth gifted the Sox one run, then Littlewood belted his two-run shot to center in the seventh to set the stage for the end of the game.
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