With their first matchup of the season against rival San Luis Obispo Blues, the Santa Barbara Foresters tried to keep their perfect home record alive, but lost 10-2.
Offense again lacked for the Foresters, who mustered only two runs in the game while leaving nine men stranded on base. With the bases loaded and two outs in the seventh, the Foresters best chance of a comeback fell by the wayside as Garrett Mattlage flew out to deep right center field.
Keaton Siomkin took the mound for the first time since June 16, and threw six innings while allowing three runs and striking out six. He took his third loss of the season despite earning another quality start.
The Blues put together a bit of a two-out rally in the second inning, Cody Jones scored from second on a Derek Miller double. Miller then came home on single by Bryan Case before Siomkin worked his way out of the inning.
Santa Barbara put men in scoring position in both the first and second innings, but stranded both as the score remained 2-0 early on.
However, the Foresters’ hottest hitter Jacob Felts finally put Santa Barbara on the board with a towering shot over the left center field fence with Joey Epperson on to tie it at two. Epperson was one of the few bright spots for the Foresters, going 3-for-5 with a double and the run scored.
Following the rocky second inning, Siomkin maintained order until the Blues began to hit the ball hard in sixth inning. After a leadoff double by Aaron Attaway, Michael Pritchard flew out to move him to third. Kyle Johnson moved the Blues ahead with his own double to center field that scored Attaway.
Willie Kuhl relieved Siomkin in the seventh, immediately finding trouble as the first two batters reached and were sacrificed over for the first out of the inning. Zach Dominguez promptly singled to right to score a run, making the score 4-2.
Attaway followed up the sixth inning with another double in the seventh, scoring two more and pushing the score to 6-2.
UCSB lefty Andrew Vasquez entered to throw two innings, including striking out the side in the eighth inning, but allowed two runs to score. The Forester bullpen struggled on the night, allowing seven of the ten runs.
