Wednesday, Aug. 05, 2009

Dust Devils rally in 9th to win in Eugene

From Herald news services

EUGENE -- The losses keep piling up for Eugene.

"Same time, same station, same result," Eugene manager Greg Riddoch said after Tri-City scored four runs in the top of the ninth to beat Eugene 5-3 in front of 2,747 on Tuesday night in Northwest League baseball at Civic Stadium.

Eugene (18-26) took a 3-1 lead with two runs in the sixth but the Emeralds also had the bases loaded with no outs and could add no more runs, a failure that came back to haunt them.

Eugene starter Jon Berger allowed one earned run in six innings and Jeff Ibarra threw two scoreless innings before giving up a single to Bo Bowman to open the ninth.

Closer David Erickson came out of the bullpen and gave up back-to-back singles to Kent Matthes and Joseph Sanders that cut the lead to 3-2. Alex Feinberg flew out for the first out of the inning but Matthes advanced to third on the play.

Catcher Dallas Tarleton hit a grounder to shortstop Chris Tremblay, who planned to throw home, but the grounder bounced off Tremblay's glove for an error that allowed Matthes to score the tying run.

Joey Wong flew out for the second out of the inning as Sanders tagged up to put runners on first and third. Tim Wheeler then drilled a flyball to left that bounced off the wall just out of the reach of Benedict for a two run-double.

Tri-City's Charles Ruiz picked up his league-high 11th save.