Monarchs Squeak Past Milkmen, Even The Series

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Kansas City, KS – It was a hard fought victory for the Monarchs as they were able to inch past the Milkmen, 2-1, with an exceptional defensive performance on Saturday night.

Returning Monarch, Grant Gambrell, made his first appearance on the mound for KC this season and did not disappoint. He gave up no runs while shoving in five strikeouts in five innings of work.

The Monarchs cracked open the scoreboard in the fourth frame with a pair of runs. Grant Richardson opened it up with a walk followed by a single from Austin Callahan who advanced to second on a fielders choice. Sahid Valenzuela grounded out into an RBI and brought in Richardson for the opening run. It was Hudson Head who registered his 25th RBI this season with a line drive to score the second tally. Head says, “It was a close game, got runners on, and in that situation (was) just trying to touch it and put the ball forward. (Was) able to find the barrel and find some green grass.”

This group continued to make plays defensively with outstanding efforts from Valenzuela and Josh Bissonette in the infield. The outfield had their work cutout for them, but Head, Richardson, and Smith made timely put outs all night long.

Milwaukee finally crossed home plate in the seventh frame on a sac fly RBI from Charlie Marion to bring home Andy Blake. The Milkmen finished with five runners LOB compared to KC’s 10.

Wyatt Wendell also made his first appearance on the mound in Kansas City. He went two innings while giving up a run, but threw a strikeout. Wendell talked about playing in front of the home crowd and said, “It was pretty awesome, a lot of life in the crowd tonight. There was a good group of fans and some guys out in left field yelling around. I saw some in right center that was screaming. That was cool, (it) gave us the fan aspect (and) home field advantage. It was nice to be on the mound during that and experience that.”

For the fourth time this season, the Monarchs were able to even up the series after dropping the opening game. This series will be up for grabs as the rubber match will take place at 1:05 tomorrow afternoon.