Pedro Huerta
Blazers starter Nelson Thompson struggled with his command as the game got underway. He gave up a leadoff single, followed by two routine fly balls, neither to right field. Then he plunked the next batter, who happened to be the Crawdads’ big offseason signing, Jamie Angwin. Ouch!
Three pitches later, Thompson unleashed one to the backstop, and the runners moved up. With deuces wild, 2-2 count, 2 outs, 2 on, the batter scorched a groundball to the left of the first baseman, who managed to stay on his feet as he fielded it and then took it himself for the final out. It helps to have a former middle infielder playing first base, Huerta thought. That should’ve been two runs.
Huerta hadn’t hit a home run in the last twelve games. It seemed like an eternity. He was stuck at 499 career homers. He felt like he had been pressing. He was happy that the roof was open today. You could see by the flags that there was a strong breeze blowing out to right. If he could get one up into that breeze, it should carry.
He watched Eduardo González from the on-deck circle. With one out and one on, Gonzalez hit a double into the right field gap. Most runners would’ve scored from first, but Blazers DH Aarnoud Budding was not fleet of foot. Crawdads’ right-hander Micah Harrington was a good pitcher. He had five pitches and all of them moved. He took Eddie’s double as a good sign. Maybe they could get to Harrington early before he settled in.
It was no secret that he hit right-handed pitching much better, especially this season. He dug in the left-handed batter’s box and waited. He wouldn’t try to guess what was coming. He would just have to react. The first pitch was an easy take. It was followed by a nasty curveball that he took to even the count at 1-1. The next pitch was a backdoor cutter that got too much of the plate. As soon as he hit it, he knew it had a chance. But he had hit it to left field, not right, and the wind was knocking it down. He stood in the batter’s box until he was confident that it was deep enough and then he went a little crazy. He dropped the bat and raised his hands in the air before jogging around the bases, clapping and grinning all the way around. The scoreboard was flashing 500. Gonzalez was waiting for him at home plate. “Welcome to the club!” he said with a big smile.
After the game, a 5-2 win, he spoke to the press. “I was acting goofy running the bases,” he admitted, “but it was my 500th home run.”
This season, Huerta is hitting .311/.324/.612 against right-handed pitching, with twelve doubles, two triples, five home runs, 22 RBIs, and five stolen bases, doing most of his damage on the road. As much as he enjoys the fans at Ubisoft, he was looking forward to the upcoming roadtrip. There were more milestones to conquer. He needed just 68 hits to reach 3,000.