Courtesy Vermont Lake Monsters

ABERDEEN, MD — Kevin Magee tossed six scoreless innings for the second time in a week against Vermont, while Toby Welk and Kyle Stowers homered as the Aberdeen Ironbirds opened a three-game series against the Lake Monsters with a 6-2 New York-Penn League victory Saturday evening at Ripken Stadium.

Magee (4-5) scattered four hits over six scoreless innings on Saturday, the same hits and innings as August 11th in the Ironbirds 11-0 win over Vermont at Centennal Field. The left-hander had just two strikeouts in the six frames Saturday compared to 10 strikeouts Sunday at Centennial.

Aberdeen opened the third inning with three straight singles to load the bases and took a 1-0 lead on a Craig Lewis sacrifice fly, but Vermont starter Osvaldo Berrios (0-3) got out of further trouble with an inning-ending double play.

Berrios retired the first two batters in the fourth inning before allowing a single to 2019 first-overall draft pick Adley Rutschman and a line drive two-run homer to Welk for 3-0 lead. The Ironbirds then scored two unearned runs in the fifth on a two-run, two-out fielding error by shortstop Logan Davidson.

Kyle Stowers, who hit two home runs at Vermont earlier this week, led off the bottom of the sixth with a solo homer off reliever Carlos Sanchez. The Lake Monsters were able to avoid the shutout on a Marty Bechina two-run homer, his third home run of the season, in the eighth inning to cut deficit to 6-2.

Aberdeen added two runs in the bottom of the eighth off Sanchez, including an Andrew Daschbach RBI single. Welk, Stowers, Daschbach and Clay Fisher each had two hits for Aberdeen (34-27), while Bechina and Kevin Richards both had two hits for the Lake Monsters.

The loss snapped a three-game winning streak for Vermont (28-34), which has now lost its last four games vs. Aberdeen (three-game sweep for Ironbirds August 11-13). The Lake Monsters and Ironbirds will play the second game of the series 4:05 pm on Sunday.