Jhonny Level wasted no time setting the tone Friday night at Everett Memorial Stadium, and then he kept right on swinging. The Eugene infielder opened the scoring with a solo homer on the first pitch he saw, added a two-run single in the third and launched another solo shot in the fifth to carry the Emeralds past the Everett AquaSox, 5-3.
Level finished 3-for-4 with four RBI and two runs scored, and Eugene improved to 57-37 overall and 15-13 in the second half. Everett dropped to 49-45 and 16-12.
The 19-year-old Level, ranked No. 46 on MLB Pipeline and No. 3 in the San Francisco Giants’ system, has been one of the Northwest League’s most dangerous bats, and Everett manager Ryan Scott made it clear the AquaSox had their hands full.
“He’s a really good hitter. He’s shown it ever since he came up here,” AquaSox manager Ryan Scott said.
“… It’s a guy you got to keep off balance a lot, and I mean, he’s going to do some damage like he did tonight. I know he had one that we call it a ‘Funko Homer’ here that went out to center field that’s probably not a homer in other places, but you play to the field and he earned it.
He deserved it. He’s just a good player, and really just trying to mix him up and try to not get him comfortable at the plate.”
Everett starter Colton Shaw took the brunt of the damage, giving up all four runs Level drove in across five innings. Shaw allowed seven hits and five earned runs while striking out five. The bullpen did its job from there, as Sam Whiting and Pedro Da Costa Lemos each turned in two scoreless innings, but the AquaSox offense never quite caught up.
Luke Stevenson and Carter Dorighi each had two hits for Everett, and Stevenson helped get the home team even in the first. After Ricardo Cova singled and stole second, Stevenson doubled to right to bring him home and make it 1-1.
“(Emeralds starter Jacob Bresnahan) was a good arm, had a good ride on the fastball, so I was really just trying to get him down,” Stevenson said. “(He) left a pitch up for me and hung a slider, and I just put a good swing on it.”
Eugene answered right back in the third. Shaw hit Onil Perez with a pitch and walked Zane Zielinski before Level lined a two-run single to put the Emeralds ahead again. Lisbel Diaz followed with an RBI double that bounced past Cova in the sun, though Cova recovered and threw Diaz out when he tried for third.
Everett trimmed the margin in its half of the inning. Brandon Eike delivered an RBI triple to score Stevenson, and Carlos Jimenez added an RBI groundout to bring Eike in and make it 4-3. That was as close as the AquaSox would get.
Level finished the night with his second homer in the fifth, stretching Eugene’s lead back to 5-3.
The AquaSox got a strong finish from Da Costa Lemos, who made his season debut for Everett and worked two perfect innings. The 23-year-old right-hander had spent most of the year on the Development List before being activated July 14 for two appearances with the ACL Mariners. He allowed one hit and no earned runs over four innings there before being called up to Everett on Monday.
“Feeling good, it’s great to be back,” Da Costa Lemos said. “Seeing all the fans in here, seeing everybody’s happy, just playing baseball, man. It’s so much fun and great to be back.”
He breezed through the eighth, getting back-to-back flyouts before inducing a groundout from Jose Astudillo and then a pair of popouts around a flyout by Perez.
“My (pitches were) on the zone today, but it feels like I need to work a little bit more on the finish counts, just (to) strike out guys,” Da Costa Lemos said. “I got a lot of fly balls, but yeah, still in the game.”
Everett had a chance in the ninth when Luis Suisbel doubled with one out and moved to third on a groundout by Dorighi, but Brendan Donovan ended it with a flyout. Donovan, back on rehab duty after sitting out Thursday, went 0-for-4 and finished 0-for-21 in six rehab games between Everett, Triple-A Tacoma and the Arizona Complex League Mariners since July 15. He did reach base for the first time with the AquaSox when he was hit by a pitch in the seventh.
“It’s still just continuing to build him up, and it’s all dependent on how he feels,” Scott said about Donovan’s plan for the rest of the week. “He’s been feeling good physically right now, which is the biggest thing.
I know he made some strides at the plate today, and I know he felt better about his day at the plate being able to make some hard contact. So for ‘Donny,’ it’s really just taking it day by day with him and making sure his body’s going to feel good and be ready to join the big league team here hopefully next week.”
Eugene has now won three of its last four, and Everett will try to salvage a series split in the final two games Saturday and Sunday.
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