It was an uncharacteristic night of baseball for the defending National Champion Foresters, as they committed four errors and suffered an 8-7 loss to the Pacific Union Capitalists for their first series defeat of the season at UCSB’s Caesar Uyesaka Stadium.
Pacific Union came out hot Thursday night, scoring three runs in the top of the first inning off starter Willy Amador.
Tanner Dodson put the Caps on top 1-0 with an RBI single to right,driving in Michael Hickman. With Kyle Isbel at the plate, Amador threw a wild pitch past catcher Jeremy Montalbano to bring in two more runs.
After scoring a run in the third off an error, the Foresters responded again in the bottom of the fourth with an incredible two-run, inside-the-park homer from the speedy Michael Smith to knot things up at 3-3.
With Tyler Cohen on the mound to relieve Amador, Pacific Union pulled ahead 7-3, getting RBI from Logan Denholm and Ford Proctor. Denholm finished with a solid day at the plate for the Caps, going 3-4, with 2 RBI and a run.
Down to their last three outs of the game, Santa Barbara fought back to pull within a run, 8-7. Granger Studdard brought home Connor McManigal and John Holland with a liner up the middle for his team-leading 27th and 28th RBI on the season.
With pinch-runner Troy Cruz at first and the winning run at the plate, Pacific Union closer Chris Rivera struck out Lex Kaplan to end the Foresters’ comeback.
Rivera picked up the save for the second day in a row, finishing with three strikeouts in the ninth. Kris Bubic earned the win, giving up two earned runs, while striking out 5 over 5.2 innings.
Amador suffered his first loss on the mound.
The defeated marked the first time all summer the Foresters have lost back-to-back games.
The Foresters (24-5) will face another tough challenge this weekend as they play a three-game home series against the MLB Academy.
