Hernandez Drives In Four, But Explorers Walk Off Monarchs

SIOUX CITY, Iowa — Jan Hernandez hit his first home run since coming off the injured list on a four-RBI night, but the Kansas City Monarchs lost to the Sioux City explorers 6-5 Friday night at Lewis and Clark Park.

The Explorers walked off the Monarchs, plating two runs in the bottom of the ninth. Kansas City is now 1-6 since the All-Star break, with all but one of those losses coming by just one run.

The Monarchs are still in first place in the American Association West, though their lead on second-place Fargo-Moorhead dropped to 3.5 games.

The Monarchs erased an early deficit to get back in the game. Kansas City starter Jalen Miller allowed three runs over five innings of work. His counterpart Heitor Tokar threw five scoreless frames to start his outing.

Things changed in the sixth. The Monarchs hit four straight singles to lead off the inning, including an RBI knock from Chris Herrmann and a game-tying two-run base hit from Hernandez. That leveled the score at three through six innings.

The Explorers capitalized on a couple of Monarchs errors to push across a run in the seventh, taking a 4-3 lead.

Hernandez gave Kansas City control again with his home run, a two-run blast in the eighth. It was Hernandez’ eighth home run of the season.

The Explorers tied the game in the ninth on an RBI double from Matt Lloyd, scoring Scott Ota. Two batters later, Tyler Rando hit a ground ball to second that Aaron Whitefield had trouble with. Lloyd scored the winning run on the error.

UP NEXT

The Monarchs look to even the series Saturday night at 6:05 p.m. Cody Deason will get the start for Kansas City against Sioux City’s Solomon Bates. Fans can watch the game at AABaseball.tv and listen on MonarchsBaseball.com/LIVE.