FARGO, N.D. – For most of the evening Friday night the story eerily familiar to Wednesday night for the Sioux City Explorers (1-1). Solid starting pitching but ice-cold bats against a starter for the Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks (1-1). But in the seventh a different script was written in a five run, five hit inning, to unthaw the lumber on the way to a 7-1 win for Sioux City over Fargo-Moorhead in game two of the West Division Series.
Jared Wetherbee tossed four innings scattering three hits with one earned run for the Explorers. The lefty making his first playoff start after a solid regular season would walk three but strikeout five. Colten Davis (1-0) got the starting nod for Fargo-Moorhead tossing a quality start over 6.1 innings giving up two runs only one that was earned in the hard luck loss.
Sioux City took the lead in the second after Justin Connell reached on an error by first baseman Marcus Chiu. Daniel Perez worked a walk off Davis to put two on and no outs. Ozzie Martinez moved the runners up on a sac bunt for the first out of the inning. Nick Shumpert then hit a soft flare over the head of Chiu to score Connell to make it 1-0 Sioux City.
In the bottom of the third Fargo tied it at one. Juan Fernandez singled to lead off the inning off Wetherbee. Alec Olund added another base hit to put runners on the corners with nobody out. Ismael Alcantara hit a broken bat roller back to the mound that Wetherbee fielded and threw to first with Fernandez racing home from third to tie the game at one.
Kyle Marman (1-0) came into the game in the fifth inning after getting the first two outs he walked a pair of RedHawks that bookended an infield single to load the bases. He would strike out Michael Hallquist to strand all three RedHawks on the cushions. The righty worked around a leadoff single in the sixth to keep the game knotted at one.
The RedHawks’ Davis, who had held Sioux City to six runs over 18.1 innings in the regular season, got into trouble in the top of the seventh. Shumpert led off with a rocket single off the left field wall to start the inning. Jake Ortega struck out for the first out. Daniel Lingua singled to left to put runners at the corners. Davis would be relieved by Jake Dykhoff for Fargo-Moorhead. With Daniel Montano batting, Lingua would steal second, putting two runners in scoring position. Fargo-Moorhead elected to walk John Nogowski to load the bases. Scott Ota then shot a ball through the three and four hole to score Shumpert and Lingua to give Sioux City a 3-1 lead. Connell then stepped into the box and hit a three run home run to left to extend the lead to 6-1.
Marman executed a shutdown inning in the bottom of the seventh while the Explorers added another run in the eighth inning. Shumpert doubled off Brett Garcia and would come around and score on an RBI single off the bat of Lingua to put the X’s up 7-1. Brandon Brosher retired all six batters he faced to hold off the RedHawks. The win evened the best of three game series at one game each with the third and deciding game Saturday night at Newman Outdoor Field in Fargo. The Explorers will look to RHP John Sheaks (3-6, 6.52) while fellow righty Nile Ball (5-2, 3.61) will take the hill for the RedHawks.
