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ST. PAUL, Minn. | Veteran lefthander Richard Salazar capped off an outstanding 2013 season with the Sioux City Explorers, limiting the St. Paul Saints to one hit over seven innings in a 4-0 American Association victory here Saturday night.

Salazar, improving to 6-0 over his last eight starts, finished his season with a 10-3 record despite starting the schedule on the disabled list.

Rookie reliever Kyle Kingsley, working the final two innings, escaped major jams in both frames to complete the shutout as the Explorers won for the fifth time in their last seven games.

Sioux City, 36-62, wraps up its 100-game schedule with two more games at Midway Stadium today and Monday.

Single runs in the third and fourth innings were all the support Salazar needed, although the X’s tacked on a pair of insurance runs in the eighth.

In the third, Adrian Martinez reached on an error, advanced with a wild pitch and then a base hit by Eliezer Mesa before scoring the game’s first run on a ground ball by Anthony Kaskadden.

In the fourth, Peter Barrows stroked a one-out double, moved to third on Luke Murton’s groundout and gave the X’s a 2-0 lead on a base hit by Austin Gallagher.

Mesa’s leadoff single and a walk to Kaskadden started off the eighth for Sioux City, which later got run-scoring singles from Barrows and Murton.

Kingsley, a 22-year-old Fargo, N.D., native who pitched at North Dakota State, followed a popout with three consecutive walks before escaping a potentially disastrous eighth inning with back-to-back strikeouts.

He also got away with back-to-back one-out singles in the ninth inning by the Saints -- limited to one previous hit -- coaxing a game-ending double play grounder by Adam Frost.

The shutout was just the fourth of the season for the Explorers, who have been blanked 10 times.

Article provided by Sioux City Journal Staff