Baseball: Vermont Drops 4th Straight With 7-2 Loss at Aberdeen

Courtesy Vermont Lake Monsters

ABERDEEN, MD — Doran Turchin went 3-for-4 with a double and three RBI, including a tie-breaking two-run homer to help lead the Aberdeen Ironbirds to a 7-2 victory over the Vermont Lake Monsters in New York-Penn League action Sunday evening at Ripken Stadium.

Aberdeen took an early 2-0 lead in the third on a Adam Hall sacrifice fly and a run-scoring wild pitch after Milton Ramos led off the inning with a single and advanced to third on a Guiyuan Xu one-out double.

The Lake Monsters snapped a 16-inning scoreless drought, dating back to the sixth inning Friday night at Hudson Valley, in the top of the fourth as Anthony Rivas doubled with one out and Jeremy Eierman smashed the next pitch over the leftfield fence for a two-run homer (his first professional home run) to tie the game 2-2.

The Ironbirds quickly restored the two-run lead in the bottom of the fourth on a two-run homer of their own, this one from Turchin on a 3-1 pitch from Lake Monsters starter Jhenderson Hurtado (0-1), who allowed four runs on six hits with two walks and a strikeout over five innings.

Aberdeen added three more runs in the seventh on two-out RBI singles from Willy Yahn (off reliever Charlie Cerny) and Turchin (off Jaimito Lebron), along with a run-scoring balk for the 7-2 lead.

Max Scheumann, a 20th-round pick out of Eastern Michigan went 2-for-3 to collect the first two hits of his professional career for Vermont. The Eierman homer accounts for the only two runs that the Lake Monsters have scored over its last 22 innings (Vermont just 9-for-63 over last two games).

Ramos and Xu both had two hits for Aberdeen (5-5), while Jimmy Murphy allowed just two hits with a walk and three strikeouts over four innings of relief for the win.

The Lake Monsters have now lost the first four games of the six-game roadtrip to fall to 5-5 overall on the season. Vermont plays two more games at Aberdeen on Monday and Tuesday at 7:05 pm before an off day on Wednesday. The Lake Monsters return to Centennial Field for a six-game homestand starting Thursday.