SIOUX FALLS, SD (July 8, 2020) – The St. Paul Saints offense was no where to be found on Wednesday afternoon at Sioux Falls Stadium. They managed just three singles and never had a runner reach third. While the pitching was superb, the defense let them down in an unfortunate fifth inning as the Saints lost 3-0 to the Sioux Falls Canaries.

Matt Quintana started for the Saints and looked strong. His lone mistake of the afternoon came in the second when he gave up a leadoff home run to Ryan Long, his first of the season, making it 1-0 Canaries.

In the fifth, Quintana’s defense abandoned him in what should have been an easy inning. Andrew Ely led off with a fly ball to left that Sebastian Zawada got turned around on due to a tough wind blowing out to left. Zawada turned to his left, turned back to his right, but by the time he did that the ball was over his head for a double. Jabari Henry then hit a routine fly ball to right as Max Murphy started back, but had to come charging in as the wind knocked the ball down. Henry wound up with a single as Ely took third. The next hitter, Alay Lago, hit a ground ball to the left of second baseman Josh Allen, who fielded it, spun towards second and dropped the ball as he went to throw it. On the error Ely scored from third making it 2-0 Canaries. The next hitter Damek Tomscha hit a ground ball right at shortstop Connor Justus, but the ball bounced off his glove into left-center field as Henry scored on the error giving the Canaries a 3-0 lead. Quintana came out of the game and went 4.0+ innings allowing three runs (two earned) on seven hits while walking one and striking out five. Spencer Jones came on in relief and struck out the first two hitters before loading the bases with a walk. He got Mike Hart to fly out to end the inning. Jones would go 2.0 hitless, scoreless innings while walking two and striking out three.

The Saints three hits came on a two-out single by JC Millan in the first, a two out single by Max Murphy in the third and a one out single by Murphy in the sixth. The only other baserunner came on a walk to Reynolds following the single by Murphy in the third. The final 11 Saints hitters were retired in order.

The Saints got solid relief from Brian Glowicki (2.0 shutout innings) and Jameson McGrane (1.0 shutout inning).

The same two teams meet in the finale of the three-game series on Thursday night at 7:05 p.m. The Saints send RHP Eddie Medina (0-1, 5.40) to the mound against Canaries RHP Tyler Herron (1-0, 3.60). The game can be heard on KFAN Plus, 96.7 FM and seen at aabaseball.tv.

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By Sean Aronson, St. Paul Saints