Milkmen falter late and drop game one of series to Sioux Falls

The Milkmen hit the road to take on the Sioux Falls Canaries for a three game series that began tonight at the Birdcage in South Dakota. David Holmberg started for Milwaukee, opposing Tyler Herron for the Canaries. The game was scoreless through the first two frames, and some baserunning blunders cost the Milkmen an opportunity to score in the top of the third, with Logan Trowbridge and Christian Correa both getting caught in rundowns and thrown out.

In the bottom of the third, the Canaries strung together four straight hits against Holmberg to push across their first two runs of the game. Sioux Falls scored their third run in the next inning on a home run by Logan Landon. Those would be the only runs that Holmberg allowed during the game, however, as he went six innings with seven hits allowed, one walk, and six punchouts.

The Milkmen scored their first run of the game in the fifth on a sacrifice fly by Brett Vertigan that scored Zach Nehrir. In the sixth, Milwaukee took advantage of some Canary mistakes to tilt the game. Jose Sermo reached base on a dropped third strike to lead things off. David Washington walked, and Mason Davis singled to load the bases. After a fielder's choice by Adam Walker, Nehrir lofted a ball to the outfield that was dropped and allowed Washington to score. That brought up Correa, who roped a double off the wall that scored two runs and gave Milwaukee a 4-3 lead.

Peyton Gray cruised through the seventh for Milwaukee, but Karch Kowalczyk had difficulties in the eighth. Alay Lago drew a one-out walk and Damek Tomscha singled after him to put runners on first and second. Clint Coulter followed with a lazy fly ball into left field that was lost in lights and wound up hitting the ground for a single. After that, Mike Hart singled to score Lago and Tomscha scored on an error charged to Zach Nehrir. Landon hit a sacrifice fly and Grant Kay singled, and when the dust settled, Sioux Falls had taken a 7-4 lead.

Trowbridge singled in the ninth but the Milkmen couldn't mount any more of a rally than that, and in the end they dropped their fifth straight game. With their record now at 10-11, Milwaukee will meet Sioux Falls again tomorrow for game two of the series at 7:05 PM.

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The Milkmen are on the road in Sioux Falls. You can watch the games by clicking here. A full season subscription can be purchased for $19.99.

The Milkmen return to Franklin Field on July 31st as they host the Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks at 6:35 pm.
For tickets and more information visit MilwaukeeMilkmen.com.