BIRDS SILENCE X’s TO TAKE SERIES
Sioux City Makes Ninth Interesting But Fall to Sioux Falls
Sioux Falls, SD (July 21, 2021) – Despite an excellent start from Brett Adcock the Sioux City Explorers bats yet again fell silent as they lost to the Sioux Falls Canaries 2-1.
Adcock was out dueled for a second straight start by the Canaries starter who tonight happened to be Charlie Hasty (2-0). Hasty tossed seven innings of shutout baseball allowing just five hits with two walks and struck out six.
The X’s threatened however consistently against the Canaries starter, having runners in scoring position in four of the seven innings he pitched but could not find a hit to bring a run home. The Explorers went 1-10 when batting with runners at second or third.
Sioux City’s best chance to score off Hasty actually came in the fifth when Chase Harris attempted a straight steal of home but was called out at the dish.
The game remained scoreless until the sixth thanks to Brett Adcock who kept the Canaries off the board until that frame.
With runners at the corners and two outs in the inning, Jabari Henry tripled to the right center field gap allowing both runners to score and putting the Birds up 2-0. Of the nine runs that Sioux Falls has scored in the series seven of them have scored with two outs in an inning.
Adcock (2-7) takes a second consecutive tough luck loss as he twirled a complete game tossing all eight innings allowing just those two runs to score. He allowed only five hits, three of which came in that sixth inning, walked just one and fanned six.
For Adcock he has made two consecutive impressive starts against Sioux Falls but has two losses to show for it. In the two combined efforts he has allowed just four runs in fourteen innings of work (2.57 ERA) with twelve strikeouts on eleven hits but the X’s offense has supplied him with just one single run over those two starts.
The run came in the ninth inning after a lead off walk and a Chris Clare double to extend his hitting streak to a team long 13 games. Sebastian Zawada singled to center to score a run. Clare was held at third and Zawada was able to sneak into second as Sioux City had the tying run at third and the go ahead run at second with just one out. But Caleb Frare locked down his sixth save of the season and fourth against the Explorers by striking out the next two batters looking to end the game 2-1.
Sioux City will look to avoid the sweep on Thursday night in Sioux Falls as they send rookie right hander Jonah Smith (0-2, 8.15) up against southpaw Ty Culberth (6-3, 4.71) with first pitch scheduled for 7:05.