It was 100 degrees at first pitch-- at 7pm in the evening-- but the on-field action promised to be much hotter as Vancouver's Scott "I'm the man" Deal (5-0 with a 0.92 WHIP and a 1.64 ERA) matched up with Eugene's Aaron "Strike throwing machine" Breit (11.16 K/9).  Deal, perhaps bolstered by a large contingent of friends and family who'd made the four hour trip down from Tacoma to watch him pitch, held up his end of the pitchers duel, but Eugene was ultimately done in by a couple of defensive miscues and lost to the visitors 5-0.

When you're pitching in 100 degree temperatures, you need to work fast, throw strikes, and get your team back in the dugout as quickly as possible.  Deal ran into a little trouble in the 2nd inning with a leadoff walk followed by a single but wiggled out of trouble with a strikeout with runners on the corners and one out followed by a soft lineout to second.  Deal, working quickly and trusting his defense, then proceeded to mow Eugene down for the next four innings, giving up only a dunk single in with two outs in the 3rd and a one-out walk in the 6th, before ending his night with the final line 6IP 0R 3H 5K 2BB 1WP.  Deal threw 37 pitches in the first two innings (22 in the 2nd), but only threw 47 in his remaining 4 innings (56/28 strike/ball ratio).  Deal absolutely pounds the bottom of the strike zone, mixing a live fastball with a wicked changeup and a dead fish breaking ball.  The Eugene hitters were looking pretty silly last night with all five Deal strikeouts being of the swinging variety.

On the other side of the coin, Breit got through his first two innings with 3 strikeouts and only a harmless two-out single in the first and a two-out walk in the 2nd.  Vancouver led off Breit's third inning with two sharp singles, however, putting Breit in a "first and third, no outs" situation.  Vancouver shortstop Samuel Hernandez then proceeded to have the best AB of the night, coming back from an 0-2 count and ultimately working the count full before hitting a sac fly to center on the 9th pitch of the AB for the first run of the game.  Hernandez's AB may have also set up Vancouver's second run of the inning as well.

With one out and a runner on first, Breit now had to face the A's #2 draft pick, Matt Sulentic.  We may not be "selling jeans" in the A's organization, but you can't help but be struck by how much Sulentic matches the old cliche "looks like a ballplayer" when he stands in at the plate.  After laboring through the Hernandez AB, however, Breit walks Sulentic on four pitches.  But the second pitch was particularly costly as Breit spiked it into the dirt to the right of home plate where it skittered away from catcher Luany Sanchez allowing Hernandez to move to 2nd.  Sanchez then uncorked a wild throw to 2nd, which ended up sailing into center field, as Hernandez scampered to 3rd.  This was a costly error for the Ems, as Hernandez came home on a sac fly to right by the very next batter.  Sulentic may "look like a ballplayer at the plate", but he committed a baserunning gaffe by allowing himself to be caught off first base on the sac fly and the inning ended on the 9-3 double play.

It turns out that was it for Breit-- Eugene tends to be very conservative with pitch counts, and Breit had labored through 56 pitches in three innings.  Eugene turned it over to lefty Matt Farrington for the 4th and lafty slinger Brooks Dunn (hey, I didn't name the kid) who cruised through the 5th, 6th, and 7th (on 11 pitches, 8 pitches, and 8 pitches) before being the second hard-luck pitcher for the Ems as his defense let him down in the 8th.  Dunn gave up a leadoff walk in the 8th, but retired the next batter on an easy pop-up to the catcher.  Canadians leadoff man, Larry "Don't call me Ty" Cobb then hit a hot shot to Ems shortstop Jesus Lopez who failed to get his body behind the ball and let it roll into left field for an E6.  If Lopez makes that play, it's two outs (possibly even a DP) and Dunn stays in the game and finishes strong.  As it was, the situation was now runners on the corners with one away and Eugene went to its bullpen for righty Rolando Valdez, who unfortunately allowed the inning to spiral out of control.  Valdez went single-walk-single on the next three batters, allowing three runs to score and it's 5-0 Vancouver.

The three runs Vancouver tacked on in the 8th may not have mattered, because Deal gave way to Jason Fernandez who scattered two hits (one of them a ringing double by Ems center fielder Mike Epping with two outs in the 8th) in his final three innings of work, putting himself in line for the save.  All in all, a well-pitched game for Vancouver.  Epping's double and a loud out to the left fielder by Ems third baseman Abraham Aguilar on the first pitch of the 5th inning were the only balls hit hard by the Ems all night.  But without the defensive miscues by Eugene, the score may well have been 1-0 instead of 5-0.

Other game notes:  Vancouver was not rocking the socks last night-- only shortstop Samuel Hernandez was showing any sock at all, and his pants were barely calf-high.  Still, one can only assume that his "high sock mojo" contributed to his huge AB in the 3rd inning... Despite the fact that it was 100 degrees at first pitch, some poor guy had to don the Padres "Swinging Friar" costume for the game (the Ems are the Padres NWL affiliate)... Sulentic had a decent night at the plate (1-2 with 2 BB), but managed to lose his grip on the bat during his first AB, sending the bat rocketing into the padding to the right of home plate.  He singled cleanly up the middle on the next pitch, so all's well that ends well, I guess...