LA MIRADA, California- Lance Smith

The Shepherds had another league game versus the Ventura County Pirates on Tuesday evening. The Pirates had won both meetings before today and looked to clinch the season series by winning the third of five games.

Max Montplaisir started on the bump and had really good stuff early on keeping Pirates’ hitters off balance. Unfortunately for Montplaisir, balls were falling for the Pirates as seemingly every time they made contact, the baseball found a hole. Monty threw 4.0 innings in which he gave up five earned runs on nine hits. Alex Escobar came in relief of Montplaisir and put up a valiant effort throwing 5.0 innings and only allowing two earned runs.

At the plate, the offense had a fairly productive day scoring six runs on nine hits, headlined by Connor Aldrich who went 3-3 with two singles, one double, and four RBI’s in four plate appearances. The Pirate offense, who sits atop the league in runs scored per game, was just too much for the Shepherds to hang with today. Fortunately, the Sheps will get another shot at the Pirates tomorrow evening and will look to avenge tonight’s loss.

Derek Potts (2-2) picked up the win and Alex Escobar (0-2) was tacked with the loss.

Notes

- Gabe Falcone went 1-4 with an RBI single

- Simms Owens went 1-4 with a single and walk

- Jackson LoBianco went 2-5 and scored two runs

- Emry Jackson went 1-3 with an RBI single and a walk

- Max Montplaisir struck out six batters in 4 IP

Quote from Connor Aldrich

"I think we just come back tomorrow with the same drive we had today. You know, sometimes baseball happens and that’s what happened today. You lose some tough ones and I just think we’re gonna come out tomorrow with the same attitude and effort and hopefully come out on the other side of things.”

What’s next

The Shepherds have another league game against the Ventura County Pirates tomorrow at 4:30 PM PST. The game will be played at LA Valley College and will be live streamed on the Shepherds Facebook page which can be found at https://www.facebook.com/socalfcabaseball/. To stay up to date on all things Shepherds baseball follow us on Instagram (@shepherds_baseball), Twitter (@SoCalShpherds), and Facebook (Southern California FCA Baseball).