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Rookie Hurler Earns First Win, Offense Cruises 

Sioux City, IA (July 28, 2021) – The Sioux City Explorers got a fantastic seven innings out of Jonah Smith and ten runs in a three inning span to down the Winnipeg Goldeyes 11-1 to even up the three game series. 

Jonah Smith (1-2) earned his first professional victory shutting down the powerful Goldeyes offense over seven frames allowing only a single run in the sixth inning, he scattered nine hits, all of them singles while walking only a single batter and striking out five while tossing a career high 114 pitches. 

Smith was buoyed by the Explorers offense who saw the first five men to the plate retired before a Lane Milligan double with two gone in the second was followed by a Sebastian Zawada two run home run to put Sioux City on top 2-0. 

The X’s bats then exploded in the third plating six runs. It began with one out in the inning and runners at first and second. A LT Tolbert base hit to right field pushed the X’s lead to 3-0 and the end of the play resulted in runners at second and third. Seamus Curran collected his first hit as an Explorer with a double down the left field line, scoring one. And Lane Milligan on a full count homered to center fielder to break it open for Sioux City making it 7-0. Immediately following Milligan was Zawada with his second home run of the night to cap the rally for the X’s at an 8-0 score. 

Sioux City would push the lead to double digits in the fourth, scoring multiple runs in three consecutive innings with Tolbert and Curran once again driving in runs to make it 10-0. 

The four consecutive bats in the order of Tolbert, Curran, Milligan and Zawada drove home all eleven runs of the night for the X’s while six of the nine bats in the lineup collected a multi hit game and now over their last three games the Sioux City offense has scored 34 runs. 

Taking the loss for Winnipeg was Jorge Gonzalez (2-4) who allowed eight runs on eight hits in three innings, while striking out four and walking just one. 

The Goldeyes plated a run in the sixth on a Wes Darvill single, and the X’s finished off their scoring in the eighth with an RBI single from Curran who had a three hit, three RBI night in just his second game with Sioux City. 

The Explorers and Goldeyes will meet for the rubber game of the series on Thursday night at 7:05 pm with Zach Hedges (5-4, 5.09) on the bump for Sioux City and righty Dylan Burns (0-0, 3.38) opposing him for the Goldeyes.