The Santa Barbara Foresters were held to a pair of singles and suffered their third straight loss, a 3-2 decision against the Orange County Riptide on Thursday at Pershing Park.
Luke Ritter and Austin Todd had the only hits for Santa Barbara, Ritter’s coming in the fourth and Todd’s in the sixth. Todd was erased in a triple play. Joshua Jung lined out to Riptide second baseman Paul Gomez, who threw to first baseman Jack Pulcheon to get Zach Humphreys for the second out. Pulcheon then fired to catcher Cooper Uhl to nail Todd at home for the third out.
Orange County starter Ricky Reynoso allowed both Forester hits and one run in six innings of work. He walked two and struck out six. Parker Joe Robinson fanned four in two scoreless innings and Will Tomlinson pitched the ninth, allowing one run on no hits.
Both Forester runs were scored without a hit. In the first, Todd walked, stole second and third and scored on a ground out by Jung. In the ninth, Hank LoForte was hit by a pitch, moved to second on a balk, reached third on a wild pitch and scored on a sacrifice fly by Jung.
Orange County scored a run in the first with the help of a throwing error by the catcher on Joey Parente’s steal of second base. Pulcheon hit a two-out single for the run. A walk to Tate Shaw followed by a Gomez double gave the Riptide a 2-1 lead in the second. The third run came in the seventh, with Shaw scoring on a throwing error by the catcher.
Jake McDonald, who gave up two runs on five hits in five innings, suffered the loss for the Foresters.
The Foresters are back in action at Pershing Park on Friday against the Conejo Oaks.