St. PAUL, MN (August 30, 2020) – A win and they were a half game out and held the tiebreaker. A loss and they were 2.5 back and didn’t hold the tiebreaker. Unfortunately, for the St. Paul Saints it was the latter. They finally got solid starting pitching, but they couldn’t do much against the Sioux Falls Canaries pitchers and dropped a 3-2 game on Sunday evening at CHS Field in front of a sellout crowd of 1,500. The loss drops the Saints to 25-26 and 2.5 games out of a playoff spot with nine game left.

In a rematch Tuesday’s game between the two teams, Matt Solter, of the Saints, and Tyler Danish, of the Canaries, were solid. Each gave their team a chance to win.

For the fifth consecutive game the Saints allowed the leadoff man in the first inning to reach as Logan Landon singled to center. For the third time in those five games he came in to score as Damek Tomscha ripped an RBI double off the glove of a leaping Chuck Taylor in left field to give the Canaries a 1-0 lead. The Saints have allowed the leadoff batter in the first inning to reach 27 times and that hitter has scored 14 times.

For the only time in the three-game series against the Canaries the Saints managed to tie the game. In the second, Taylor led off with a single to right. He moved to second on a groundout and advanced to third on a single from Nate Samson. John Silviano tied the game at one with a single to left.

The Canaries took the lead for good in the fourth when Tomscha led off with a double, moved to third on a single by Alay Lago, and scored on a Jabari Henry sacrifice fly making it 2-1 Canaries. Solter went 6.0 innings allowing two runs on eight hits while walking one and striking out six.

Aaron Brown took over in the seventh, and for the first time in his six appearances with the Saints he gave up a run. Grant Kay led off with a single to right, moved to second on a wild pitch, and advanced to third on a Landon single. Andrew Ely then hit a ground ball to third, Chesny Young looked Kay back and threw to second for the out, but as Young threw to second Kay broke for home and scored making it 3-1.

The Saints would get to within a run in the bottom of the inning against Canaries reliever Nicco Blank. With one out Silviano walked and, with two outs, Mikey Reynolds doubled him home. That would be the last base runner of the night for the Saints.

The Saints never led in the three game series and trailed for 24 of the 27 innings played.

The Saints have Monday off and return to action on Tuesday night at CHS Field for a three-game series against the Milwaukee Milkmen at 7:05 p.m. The game can be seen on the Saints Cable Network, cable access channels in and around the Twin Cities area, streamed at aabaseball.tv, and heard on KFAN Plus, 96.7 FM.

Boxscore

by Sean Aronson, St. Paul Saints