Looks like Matt was able to hit up the computer at the Valley River Inn before he tucked in for the night. He provides his recap of tonight’s festivities, where the C’s started strong once again but faded quickly.

From my perspective, although the post-season prospects look bleak, at least the two teams avoided playing head-hunter tonight. They let the bats do the talking.

Eugene, however, talked louder.

A C’s loss at Salem-Keizer combined with a Eugene loss at home to Everett would allow the Volcanoes to officially clinch the West Friday night. That became official after the C’s stunk out the joint in a 7-3 loss to the Ems and Salem-Keizer came back with two in the 9th at the Crater to defeat Everett 4-3 on Thursday.

The champange is on ice in Salem and boy they deserve it. They are 46-18 and 11 games ahead of both the C’s and Ems in the division.

Chad Lee was chased after three innings in which he allowed six earned runs on seven Emerald hits. Eugene had home runs from Michael Campbell and Tom King in a four-run 3rd inning that proved to be the difference. Lee drops to 3-2 on the season.

One of the lone bright spots for the C’s was Shane Presutti who struck out four and allowed only one hit over 3 innings of relief.

All Salem Keizer needs is one win against the C’s and one Everett win over Eugene in the next six games to claim the division flag.

Tune into the pre-game show at 6:50pm Friday night on canadiansbaseball.com.