It got scary late, but the Kansas City Monarchs manage to hold on for a win over the Sioux Falls Canaries 8-6 Wednesday night at Legends Field in Kansas City, Kansas.
Sioux Falls collected three runs in the eighth inning to turn an 8-3 game to a two-run game.
After a pitching change from Kansas City, left-hander Carlos Diaz came into the game with two outs and a run home in the inning.
He allowed a Canaries two-run RBI single courtesy of Trey Michalczewski, cutting the Monarchs lead to two. Diaz got his first of two big strike outs to end an inning when he got Mike Hart looking at a called third strike.
In the top of the ninth Diaz again had to work out of a jam. With two outs the Canaries got two runners on and looked to be threatening to rally.
Diaz worked the count to 0-2 on Angelo Altavilla and froze the Canaries’ lead-off man with a breaking ball for a called third strike to end the ball game with runners aboard.
“We needed it, that’s for sure,” Monarchs manager Joe Calfapietra said Wednesday night, “We didn’t play well yesterday; we had to come back today and salvage a win in the series… it was a big one.”
The Canaries came out in the first inning, bats blazing, against Monarchs starting pitcher, right-hander Dylan Baker (2-0), with back-to-back homers courtesy of Logan Landon and Jabari Henry.
The Monarchs responded right away with a series of walks and singles, including a two-run RBI single off the bat of Colin Willis and a three-run home run from Ryan Grotjohn, leaving the score a whopping 5-2 going into the second inning.
Grotjohn hit yet another three-run homer out to right field, adding to the Monarchs lead, 8-2, in the third. The Arizona native is the third Monarch to have a two-home run game so far this season.
Bases were quiet for a couple innings until the seventh and eighth when Sioux Falls’ Jabari Henry and Nick Gotta managed to get around the bases with two more RBIs as a result of wild pitches from the newest additions to the Monarchs bullpen, right-hander Cody Mincey and Jameson McGrane, making it 8-4.
“[Mincey] hasn’t pitched in a while, so we needed an inning out of him, and he was able to give it to us… and we will just build off of that.”
The Monarchs held on and preserved the win for Dylan Baker (2-0) while the Canaries’ Tyler Garkow (1-1) was charged with the loss. Carlos Diaz notched his second save of the season in the win.
The Monarchs will have a day off on Thursday before traveling to Texas to face the Cleburne Railroaders for a three-game series this weekend beginning at 7:06 p.m. Friday. The game can be heard on the Monarchs Broadcast Network with the pre-game beginning at 6:35 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