The Kansas City Monarchs exploded for 16 runs on 22 hits on Thursday night in Sioux City, Iowa.
Defeating the Sioux City Explorers 16-3, the Monarchs, 53-25, stayed on top of South division, 10.5 games ahead of the closest competitor, the Lincoln Saltdogs.
Explorer’s pitcher Patrick Ledet, 6-4, led the Sioux City pitching staff with 84 strikeouts. He faced Monarchs’ starter Nick Travieso.
After a scoreless first inning, the Monarchs scored three runs in the top of the second. Darnell Sweeney doubled to left field and drove in Charcer Burks, Will Kengor and Alexis Olmeda.
The Monarchs added another run the next inning with a Kengor RBI double, making the score 4-0. He extended his hitting streak to 18 games.
Travieso gave up his first run in the bottom of the third. Sioux City got three hits and two runs in the inning to close the gap to 4-2.
Both starters had flawless fourth innings, but the fifth inning was differenet.
Kansas City scored four in the top of the inning after a leadoff double, walk, hit by pitch, single and another double. Burks and Grotjohn had RBIs and the Monarchs led, 8-2.
Sebastian Zawada singled to right, scoring Joseph Monge, and the score was 8-3.
Elroy Urbina took over for Travieso after the end of the fifth. Travieso, the winning pitcher, faced 25 batters, gave up nine hits and one walk. Ledet, the losing pitcher, also left in the fifth, after striking out 10 Kansas City batters. The Monarchs got 11 hits, two walks and eight runs off Ledet.
The Monarchs scored two more runs in the sixth, bringing the score to 10-3. Gerrero, Isabel, Kengor and Olmeda got hits in the sixth.
Urbina pitched three scoreless innings, allowing only one hit and one walk, and got three strikeouts.
The Monarchs weren’t done yet. They added six runs in the last two innings. Colin Willis’ two-run home run was the highlight to end the night, with the final score 16-3.
The Monarchs travel to Chicago Friday night to play the Chicago Dogs at 7:05 p.m.
The game can be heard on the Monarchs Broadcast Network with the pre-game beginning at 6:30 p.m. and the video stream airing on aabaseball.tv.
- Story by Jaxson Webb