When I walked into Gesa Stadium tonight, I saw Derrell Ebert wearing a short-sleeve dress shirt, a particularly hokey pair of glasses and sandals with socks.

A peculiar look for the Dust Devils vice president and general manager, I thought. But it's basically his show here, so if that's what Derrell wants....

Then I found out it was part of Embrace Your Geekness night and noticed that several other staff members had followed suit with suspenders, pigtails, slicked back hair, etc...

I didn't know about the promotion, but fortunately I already fit right in.

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Dust Devils lead the Eugene Emeralds 2-0 after two innings. Jordan Ribera, the Northwest League RBI leader, drove in Brian Humphries in the first with a one-out grounder to first. The next inning, Ryan Casteel doubled to deep left center to bring home Jared Simon.

A good start against Ems starter Johnny Barbato, the San Diego Padres sixth-round draft pick last year.

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Not a very nice return to Tri-City for Eugene manager Pat Murphy, who was a player-manager for the Tri-City Atoms in 1986 back when they played at the Bomber Bowl in Richland.

First off, he's down 3-0 in the fifth inning, but he just got thrown out by second base umpire Matt Sczajak for arguing a call on the basepaths. With Humphries on second, Tim Smalling grounded a pitch to a shortstop Jace Peterson, who made a quick throw to third base. The throw looked like it beat the runner, but Sczajak thought Humphries slipped in under the tag and called him safe.

Murphy didn't like the call one bit, going nose to nose with Sczajak, who stood his ground for several minutes before giving Murphy the ol' heave ho.

But watching Murphy work the jaw was kind of fun, I have to admit. Even from up in the press box about 100 yards away — and with Murphy facing left field — you could still hear him spitting fire.

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Humphries scored on Tyler Massey's sacrifice bunt to make it 4-0. Dust Devils in control against the best team in the league so far. But the Ems are playing without their 1-2 punch of Donovan Tate and Cory Spangenberg, who was twice named the NWL offensive player of the week during the team's impressive 21-4 start.

But Tate is halfway through a 25-game suspension for violating major league baseball's drug policy, and Spangenberg was promoted to the Padres' Low-A affiliate in Fort Wayne (Ind.).

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Tri-City starter Christian Bergman leaves after 5 2/3 fantastic innings. He allowed just two hits and struck out six with just one walk. They're starting to stretch him out a bit. In his last start, he went seven full innings, and tonight he's cleared to go up to 90 pitches.

The Dust Devils pitchers sure got knocked around during their last road trip, but it must be nice to be back at Gesa Stadium and — as former Tri-City first baseman Brandon Reichert would say upon returning from a long road trip — bow to the mighty sun shade.

Still 4-0 Dust Devils after six innings.

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Tri-City reliever Rafael Suarez fighting to close this thing out. Almost gets there, recording two outs in the ninth but leaving runners on the corners before giving way to Ken Roberts.

And Roberts puts it away, getting the final batter to ground to shortstop Taylor Featherston to end the game.

Just the Dust Devils second shutout of the year, and a great win to put them back at .500.