Canadians falter late, fall to Emeralds

Luis De Los Santos has two hits and two RBIs for the Vancouver Canadians on Saturday. Photo: Vancouver Canadians/Twitter

June 26, 2021

Official Vancouver Canadians News Release

EUGENE, OR – A double, a wild pitch and an errant throw home doomed the Vancouver Canadians Saturday night in a 4-3 loss to the Eugene Emeralds (Giants) at PK Park.

Tied 3-3 heading into the bottom of the eighth inning, reliever Adrian Hernandez (L, 2-1) surrendered a lead-off double to Will Wilson after working a perfect seventh. A wild pitch moved Wilson to third with no outs before a grounder to first on the drawn-in infield recorded the first out of the frame and kept the runner at third base. The next batter also grounded to the first baseman, who threw wide of home as Wilson dashed to the plate and scored the eventual game-winning run before Chris Wright (W, 2-1) worked around a lead-off walk in the top of the ninth to strand the tying run on base.

Eugene started the scoring in the second inning. Paxton Schultz walked three consecutive batters before Carter Aldrete singled home a pair to make it 2-0, but Schultz – who would go on to work six innings in which he allowed three runs on four hits with three walks and a season-high nine strikeouts – escaped the stanza with no further damage.

The C’s answered with a run in the top of the third. With two on and two outs, Ryan Gold’s base hit brought in the first score of the game for Vancouver to cut the deficit in half.

After the Emeralds plated another run in the fourth to retake a two-run lead, the Canadians scored in the fifth on a Luis De Los Santos single before the shortstop came to the plate again in the seventh with the tying run on second. Rafael Lantigua singled and stole second to set up De Los Santos, who doubled just inside the bag at third to tie the game 3-3. The Bajos De Haina, D.R. native leads the High-A West with 36 RBIs.

With the loss, the C’s have dropped the season series with the Emeralds; these two teams are only set to meet for a total of 12 games this year and will go head-to-head one last time tomorrow afternoon at 1:05 p.m. Right-handers Brian Rapp of Vancouver and Kai-Wei Teng of Eugene will duel in a rematch of game one of this series on Tuesday.