Sioux Falls, SD - The Sioux Falls Canaries (17-24) suffered a 6-2 defeat at the hands of the El Paso Diablos (18-23) in front of 3,581 at Sioux Falls Stadium on Saturday night.
El Paso jumped out to an early lead scoring four runs with two outs in the top of the first inning. After Kennard Bibbs grounded out and Arnoldo Ponce struck out, Juan Camacho started the Diablos first inning scoring by hitting his third home run of the year. Jorge Alverez walked and Mike Provencher hit his first home run of the season, putting the Diablos ahead by three, 3-0. El Paso got one more run as Tyler Johnson tripled and scored on a double by Adam Hale. Following the first a half inning of play the Canaries trailed, 4-0.
The Birds got one back in the bottom of the first. With runners on the corners, Cory Harris hit a sacrifice fly to centerfield to score Jared Lemieux. The run put the Canaries on the board and made it 4-1, Diablos.
El Paso added a run each in the fourth and fifth innings. Tyler Johnson hit his fourth home run of the season in the fourth to give El Paso a 5-1 lead. In the fifth, the Diablos loaded the bases for Adam Hale, who drew a walk to put the Diablos ahead by five runs, 6-1.
The Canaries scored once again in the bottom of the fifth. Patrick Reilly walked and stole second base to get in scoring position. With two outs, Lemieux singled to score Reilly and cut the Diablos lead to four, but that would be all the Canaries would get in the 6-2 final.
Justin Mallett (1-2) pitched six innings and gave up two runs on five hits to get the win for El Paso. Jino Gonzalez (2-2) suffered the loss for the Canaries, giving up six runs on eight hits in 4.2 innings.
The Canaries and Diablos will get together for the final game in their three-game set on Sunday afternoon at 2:05 p.m. The game will be a Humana Senior Sunday featuring half-priced upper executive tickets for senior citizens.
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