712.277.WINS (9467)

Sioux City Grabs Share of First Place in Division

Sioux City, IA  - With some of the incredible men and women of the USS Sioux City in attendance the Sioux City Explorers did not disappoint on Saturday night as they won 6-1 over the Sioux Falls Canaries, and with the win pulled into a first place tie with the Birds in the American Association South Division.

Jason Garcia (7-1) was once against magnificent for the Explorers as he twirled seven innings of shut out baseball, allowing five hits and no walks while striking out seven. Garcia was able to pick up his league leading seventh win of the season with the effort. 

Both starting pitchers in the series Garcia and Taylor Jordan were able to keep the Canaries high powered offense in check and keep them off the scoreboard for a combined 16 straight innings. Garcia had allowed four hits in the first three innings but then went on to retire the last 13 of 14 batters that he faced in the ball game. 

He was helped offensively from another spread out and even attack from the Explorers. Only Nate Samson had multiple RBI’s in the game and six of the nine batters in the lineup scored a run. Eight players had hits in the game and everyone in the starting lineup found a way to get on base. 

Sioux City never had a rally of more than two runs in the game as they scored in four different innings. Michael Lang lead the barrage with a three hit day including an RBI and a run scored. 

Sioux City scored twice in the second off an RBI single from Adam Sasser and a sacrifice fly from Drew Stankiewicz and added a run in the third on a sacrifice fly from Nate Samson making it 3-0. 

Samson and Jose Sermo hit back to back doubles in the fifth to make it 4-0 and the X’s tacked on two more in the sixth on an RBI single from Lang and Samson brought in one with another sac fly to make it 6-0 X’s. 

All of those runs came off of Will Solomon (1-4) who was making his Canaries debut. The former RedHawk went five and a third, allowing six runs, five earned on ten hits with a pair of walks and strike outs. 

Sioux Falls tacked on a run in the ninth to avoid the shut out on a solo blast by Trae Santos giving the game it’s final score of 6-1. 

Now the Sunday afternoon affair will be a battle of first place in the South Division between the Canaries and the Explorers with first pitch set for 4:02 pm.