PAPILLION, NEB. – The Omaha Storm Chasers dropped a second straight game to the St. Paul Saints, with a 3-2 loss on Wednesday at Werner Park.
Once again, the Saints jumped in front early and led the entire night, scoring two runs in the top of the first on a pair of walks, a sacrifice fly and a single against Omaha starting pitcher Dinelson Lamet for a 2-0 lead over Omaha in the top of the first inning.
In the bottom of the second inning, the Chasers scored a run and cut the St. Paul lead down to 2-1 as Nate Eaton doubled and after moving to third on a groundout, Devin Mann brought home Eaton with another groundout to move the score to 2-1 in favor of the Saints.
St. Paul crossed home another run in the third inning as two singles set up Jair Camargo to hit a sac fly and increased the lead to 3-1 in favor of the Saints.
Lamet allowed just the three runs over six innings to earn his second quality start of the season, his third straight start of 6.0 innings with six strikeouts along the way.
Left-hander Angel Zerpa followed Lamet and pitched a scoreless top of the seventh, his first outing with Omaha this year, featuring a pickoff of his leadoff walk.
Zerpa was relieved for Anthony Veneziano in the top of the eighth inning and Veneziano followed with two scoreless innings of her own, for 3.0 shutout innings of the bullpen. St. Paul was held scoreless over the final six innings of the game, held to two hits after the third inning.
After five scoreless innings, Omaha added a run in the eighth to cut the deficit down to 3-2. John Rave led off the frame with a triple, then scored on a sacrifice fly from Drew Waters hit a sac fly into left field and scored Rave for a 3-2 game, a score that remained as the final.
Omaha drew a pair of walks in the eighth and one in the ninth, putting the go-ahead run at the plate multiple times, but could not bring another run home in the team’s 16th one-run loss of the year.
The Storm Chasers continue this week’s series against the Saints at Werner Park on Thursday, August 29 as first pitch is slated to start at 6:35 p.m. CT and left-hander Tyson Guerrero, will take the mound for Omaha in his Triple-A debut.
