The Kansas City Monarchs’ hopes for a road sweep of the Cleburne Railroaders—and to move to .500 on the year—were dashed early in a 12-2 loss, dropping the Monarchs to 7-9 on the year.
Starter Nick Travieso gave up a three-run home run with no one out in the bottom of the first. An inning later Osvaldo Martinez hit the first of his four RBIs in the game. He grabbed another in the fourth on a single to bring the Railroader lead to 5-0.
Cleburne put the game out of reach with a four-run sixth after Dylan Davis replaced Travieso. Meanwhile, Railroader starter Michael Gunn put together seven innings of two-hit baseball.
When Cleburne pulled its starter, the Monarchs finally got a chance to get on the board. In the eighth, Ramsey Romano walked, and Ryan Grotjohn hit a single to put runners on first and second for Darnell Sweeney.
Sweeney cleared them with a two-RBI double with one out, but a flyout and a ground out stranded him at second and ended the Monarchs’ best chance to get back into the game.
The Monarchs’ bullpen gave the ground right back by walking in a pair of Railroaders in the eighth before Romano took the pitching mound from short stop to get the last two outs.
Collin Willis hit a two-out single in the ninth, but the Monarchs could not surmount the Railroader 10-run lead.
The Monarchs have Monday off before heading to Gary, Indiana, to take on the Gary SouthShore RailCats for the second half of their six-game road trip beginning at 7 p.m. Tuesday. The game can be heard on the Monarchs Broadcast Network with the pre-game beginning at 6:40 p.m. and the video stream airing on aabaseball.tv.
On June 11, the Monarchs return to Legends Field to take on the Houston Apollos. Tickets to Monarchs games can be purchased by calling 913-328-5618 or by visiting monarchsbaseball.com.
- Story from Dan Vaughan, Kansas City Monarchs