Legends Drop Game One Against Foresters 5-2
Santa Barbara, Calif. – The Menlo Park Legends hit the road for the first time this summer as they opened a three game series against the Santa Barbara Foresters on Friday night. Going up against a team that has won the National Baseball Classic World Series five times, it was definitely going to be a good judgement series for the Legends. The scoreboard may have said the Legends dropped the series opener by a final of 5-2, but in actuality they played better than the score indicates. A number of hard-hit outs defined the night for Menlo Park offensively as they fell to 9-3 on the season while the Foresters won their fifth straight to improve to 8-4.
Things got off to a pretty good start for Menlo Park as Steven McLean led off the game with a double to the gap in left center. After a stolen base, he came was driven home by a Sean Watkins sacrifice fly, and three batters into the game the Legends had a 1-0 lead. Unfortunately, the Foresters would mirror that offensive output in the bottom half of the first, scoring a run in the exact same fashion. That early half-inning lead would be the only lead the Legends would see all night.
Ivan Garcia got the call on the mound for the Legends, making his first appearance this summer. The right hander who will be attending Stephen F. Austin in the fall looked very good in the even number innings, but fell victim to the odds. The Foresters added one more run in the bottom of the third on a Hunter Williams single to give them the lead and they would never look back. Garcia pitched through five innings, but the game got away from him in the fifth. The first four Santa Barbara hitters all got hits off of Garcia, three of them being doubles. At that point the Foresters had added two more runs to take a 4-1 lead and Garcia would end his day after five complete.
After adding one more unearned run in the bottom of the seventh, the Legends got it back in the top of the eighth. McLean led off the frame with a walk and was moved to third on a pair of groundouts. Nick Brooks drove him home on a single to left, atoning for an error he made the previous inning that allowed a run to score for Santa Barbara. For the Legends, they would tally eight hits in the game but left seven men on base and could not string together the big inning they so desperately needed to get the game back to even strength.
The series continues on Saturday as the Legends and Foresters play game two at 5:00 PM at Caesar Uyesaka Stadium on the campus of UC Santa Barbara. The game will be broadcasted live on the Legends Radio Network as will the series finale on Sunday.
