NWL: Young, Dust Devils top league-leading Emeralds

G.K. Young had two hits, stole a base and scored a run in his professional debut on Wednesday and the Tri-City Dust Devils topped the league-leading Eugene Emeralds 3-2 at Gesa Stadium.

After making a throwing error in the first inning, newly-minted College World Series champion Young perfectly executed a hit-and-run in his first at-at bat, slapping a ball through the right side of the infield in the bottom of the second to take Boomer White from first to third.

“I wasn’t really nervous, honestly, I try to not bring nerves into baseball,” Young said of taking his first professional at-bat.

Young ended up going 2-for-3 in his debut and scored the game’s first run in the fourth when he came home from second on a base hit by Hunter Redman. Young stole second off of Eugene starter Bryan Hudson (1-2) to get himself in scoring position; he stole just one base during his three-year career at Coastal Carolina University.

“(Hudson) was very slow to the plate and a had a very high leg kick, and he wasn’t paying me no attention,” Young said. “So I said, ‘alright’ and took it. And we needed the run right there, that put me in the best position to score.”

Tri-City reclaimed the lead in the fifth by playing some small ball and executing situational hitting. Toward the end of his rope, Eugene starter Bryan Hudson walked the first two batters of the frame, and that was all the help the Dust Devils needed as a sacrifice bunt by Aldemar Burgos, a sacrifice fly by Chris Baker and a frozen-rope single by Kyle Overstreet gave them a 3-2 lead.

“It was a well-pitched game on both sides, and we took advantage of our opportunities,” Dust Devils manager Ben Fritz said. “(Baker and Burgos) are two guys you love to have up in that situation, three- and four-hole, it just kind of worked out like that, and Burgos did a great job of getting the bunt down.”

The Emeralds got on the board with a two-run top of the fifth that started with a fielding error by Boomer White at third, the Dust Devils third defensive miscue of the game. D.J. Wilson plated Kevonte Mitchell with an inside-out base hit to right and Robert Garcia drove in another with a double to deep center. However, the Dust Devils deflated Eugene’s momentum by throwing out Wilson trying to score on Garcia’s double.

Making his second start in the Padres organization, Tim Berry wasn’t in the game long but was effective nonetheless, allowing just two hits and striking out two over 3 1/3 innings, and held the Emeralds scoreless in spite of the Dust Devil defense committing two errors behind him.

“He looked really good, had some deep counts, guys took him on long AB’s, fouling pitches off,” Fritz said of Berry’s start. “He was fine to stay out there, but we’ve just got to make sure we don’t stretch him out too quick.”

Diomar Lopez (3-0) gave up both of Eugene runs — one was earned — but was otherwise dominant in his 2 2/3 innings of relief. Jesse Scholtens pitched the seventh and eighth for the Dust Devils and allowed just one base runner, and Aaron Cressley picked up the save in the ninth against his former team to bring his total up to four for the season.

With the win, the Dust Devils maintained their one-game lead on the division as both the Everett AquaSox and Vancouver Canadians won their Wednesday games.

The Dust Devils and Emeralds will continue their five-game series at 7:15 p.m. Thursday. Dust Devils’ ace Emmanuel Ramirez (RHP, 3-0, 2.03 ERA) is expected to face Patrick Murphy (LHP, 2-0, 0.41 ERA).

This story was originally published July 13, 2016 at 11:17 PM with the headline "NWL: Young, Dust Devils top league-leading Emeralds."