Sioux City, IA  – Coming into a game against the first place team in the division and the best offense in the league who has been riding a recent hot streak, no one could have expected the pitching performance Taylor Jordan was going to put on Friday night.

Jordan (3-4) tossed his second complete game shut out of the season, with his first occurring on June 6th at Winnipeg. He went the full nine, allowing only three hits while striking out and walking two.

Sioux Falls entered the game as the top hitting offense in the league at a .305 clip, the only team above the .300 mark. A team averaging 6.2 runs and 10.7 hits per game. Not to mention hitting a home run at a pace of one per game. Not to mention just coming off of a four game series which saw them score a total of 38 runs.

Jordan was completely dominant the whole way through the game collecting five, perfect innings, and needing only 102 pitches to complete the game throwing 75 for strikes. It was his fifth straight quality start as he has compiled an ERA of 1.40 over those starts. And has not allowed a run in the last 20 innings he has pitched. He collected 18 of his 27 outs in the ball game on ground outs.

Sioux City’s offense had been stymied for the first four innings of play by Keaton Steele. Steele (0-4) took the loss but did not pitch poorly as he was simply out dueled by Jordan. He ended up going six innings, allowing four runs on eight hits, no walks and striking out four.

The X’s though got to Steele in the fifth. Drew Stankiewicz started it off with a triple to center field and immediately scored on a base hit by Sebastian Zawada. That would prove to be all the offense Taylor Jordan would need but the X’s would add on. Dylan Kelly scored Zawada on a double to right center field and Kelly would score on a base hit by Kyle Wren to make it 3-0 Explorers. Nate Samson finished off the scoring for the night with a base hit to bring home Wren and finish off the four run fifth.

The Explorers are now 18-17 on the season and are back above .500 for the first time since their opening night win over the Lincoln Saltdogs. And find themselves only a single game out of first place in the South Division.

The X’s will have a chance to tie the Canaries in first place on Saturday at 6:05 pm when Jason Garcia takes the mound for the Explorers, he will be opposed by south paw Will Solomon for the Birds.

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By Connor Ryan