Kansas City Held to a Pair of Runs, Cleburne Evens Up the Set
Kansas City, KS — The Monarchs were quiet offensively and couldn’t overcome a four-run deficit to drop game two of the series, 5-2, on Tuesday night.
Just as they did yesterday, the Railroaders jumped into an early lead and grabbed two runs in the third inning. Mason Minzey and Jonny Barditch led off the frame with a base hit. Shortly after Cole Foster drove in the first run on a liner into left field to bring in Minzey. The very next pitch, Caleb McNeely smacked a fly ball and recorded an RBI double to make it a two-run advantage.
In the fifth inning, Cleburne would another two tallies after Foster singled and Caleb McNeely smoked a two-run bomb to jump into a 4-0 lead. The Monarchs had some work to do.
Monarchs left-hander, Austin Krob, earned his first start on the bump and went four innings while surrendering seven hits, but recorded two K’s. Nate Webb had a terrific night on the mound allowing only one hits in three innings. Webb says, “My process is pretty simple, just try to keep on working (and) keep on getting better (with) some of the things that I do well. I try and limit the things that I don’t do well. I just stay after it, i’m glad I could go out and give three innings for the guys and keep us in it.” Although, KC’s bullpen only totaled three strikeouts and will certainly look to have a better outing tomorrow morning.
Kansas City was able to drive in two runs on back-to-back homers from JD Davis and Luken Baker. Prior to tonight, these two former big leaguers were batting a .355 and showed why as they scored the only runs of the night. Baker mentions, “I missed a couple pitches today that I wanted back so I just tried to keep it simple. Put the foot on the ground, tried to hit the ball harder, and it worked out.”
The Railroaders would score an insurance run in the ninth inning off a Carter Aldrete weak fly ball into left field that brought in Foster to seal the game.
Both these teams will have a quick turnaround as game three of the set will start at 11:05 tomorrow morning. The Monarchs will throw Austin Hansen (1-3, 4.84 ERA) and he will face lefty Ben Hampton (1-2, 3.94 ERA)
