Category: Kansas City Monarchs

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

Despite being down to their final out in the ninth inning, the Monarchs came back and won in extra innings over Cleburne 11-7 — extending the winning streak to three games.

Looking to take the series from Cleburne, Kansas City handed the ball to right-handed pitcher Justin Shafer for his third start of the season. In his previous two starts, Shafer ran into trouble in the second inning. However, on Saturday night, Shafer maneuvered through the first two frames without allowing a run.

In the top of the third, the Monarchs exploded at the plate.

Morgan McCullough led off the inning with his first home run of the season.

Two batters later, Darnell Sweeney connected for a two-run shot — making it 3-0.

The fireworks, though, didn’t stop there. Later in the frame, Casey Gillaspie rocked the third home run of the inning to give the Monarchs and Shafer a 5-0 lead.

Those five runs, as it came to be, wouldn’t be enough to keep Cleburne away.

In the bottom of the third, the Railroaders scratched across a run on an Alay Lago RBI-single.

In the ensuing inning, Cleburne needed one swing to climb back into it. Noah Vaughan, who scored on Lago’s single in the third, blasted a three-run homer to trim the deficit to one run.

Shafer finished the inning without surrendering the lead, but his night was over after the fourth. He allowed four runs on four hits with five strikeouts.

The first man out of the Monarchs’ bullpen was the newly acquired Jake Matthys. The right-hander tossed a scoreless fifth inning, but was roughed up for three runs in the bottom of the sixth — resulting in a 7-5 lead for Cleburne. Matthys ended up throwing 2 ⅓ innings, but allowed seven hits and three runs.

After the seven unanswered runs by the Railroaders, Kansas City inched back in the top half of the seventh. With the bases loaded, Ryan Grotjohn was hit by a pitch. Unfortunately for the Monarchs, that was all the bats could produce in the inning.

In the top of the ninth, Kansas City faced one of Cleburne’s top arms in Mason Melotakis.

Down to their final out with a runner on first, the Monarchs received their biggest hit to date from Colin Willis. After a wild pitch moved Jan Hernandez up to second base, Willis doubled to tie the game at seven.

In extra innings, the offense, once again erupted.

Johnny Field gave Kansas City the lead on sacrifice fly and Hernandez followed up with a three-run blast — extending the lead to 11-7.

Cody Mincey came on for the final three outs and locked down the win for the Monarchs.

The Monarchs will face the Cleburne Railroaders in the final game of the three game series at 6 p.m. Sunday night in Texas. The game can be heard on the Monarchs Broadcast Network with the pre-game beginning at 5:40 p.m. and the video stream airing on aabaseball.tv.

Tickets to Monarchs games can be purchased by calling 913-328-5618 or by visiting monarchsbaseball.com.

• Story from Dan Vaughan, Kansas City Monarchs

The Kansas City Monarchs had their own Texas two-step Friday night.

Jan Hernandez went four-for-five with an RBI single leading the Kansas City offense, while Eric Stout (2-1) earned a quality start and a win over the Cleburne Railroaders in Cleburne, Texas.

Stout started where he left off in his last start by dominating on the hill in Texas for the first game of this three-game road series against Cleburne. The left hander struck out seven batters while only giving up three hits and one run in the contest.

Stout’s performance gave the Kansas City offense time to figure things out after struggling early. Through the first five innings, the Monarchs only recorded one hit with Hernandez doubling in the first inning.
In the sixth inning the offense found their stride, and the bats got hot quickly. After a lead-off walk by Darnell Sweeny, Johnny Field hit an RBI double to drive in Sweeney for the first run of the game, giving the Monarchs a 1-0 lead. Kansas City immediately scored again with the next batter Hernandez hitting an RBI single to allow the Monarchs to go up 2-0.

Stout gave up a solo home run in the bottom of the sixth as the Railroaders made it a 2-1 game. That same inning, he recorded his seventh strikeout of the game to end his Friday night performance. Right hander Cody Mincey came in to replace Stout to begin the seventh inning where he struck out one.

The Monarchs continued the offensive success in the eighth inning.

After Field got on base off an error by Cleburne, Hernandez singled, putting two batters on base for Casey Gillaspie. Gillaspie then hit a triple to drive in both runners and advance the Monarchs lead, making it a 4-1 game.

Immediately after Gillaspie’s big triple, Colin Willis hit a sacrifice fly RBI for Kansas City to take a 5-1 lead heading to the bottom half.

In the top of the ninth, the Railroaders pitching struggled, putting Monarchs batters on the bases with two straight walks with one out in the inning.

With runners at second and third, there were back-to-back wild pitches by Cleburne pitcher Bryan Saucedo, making it a 7-1 lead for Kansas City.

The hitting machine of the night, Hernandez doubled in the top of the ninth, giving him a four-for-five batting effort.

Robinson Martinez replaced Mincey on the mound in the bottom of the ninth. Mincey finished his outing by pitching two innings, giving up one hit and striking out one batter.

Martinez went three up, three down in his pitching performance, sealing the win for the Monarchs.

The Monarchs will face the Cleburne Railroaders in game two of the three game series at 7:06 p.m. Saturday in Texas. 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.

Tickets to Monarchs games can be purchased by calling 913-328-5618 or by visiting monarchsbaseball.com.

• Story from Dan Vaughan, Kansas City Monarchs