By GABRIEL LOPEZ
Kansas City Monarchs
GARY, Ind. — The Kansas City Monarchs (6-4) won their first road game of the season against the Gary SouthShore RailCats (3-7) Monday night, 7-0.
The Monarchs pitching staff was lights out as they collected eighteen strikeouts and allowed one hit through nine innings of play.
In the second inning, Jan Hernandez laced a two-out single to left field but was able to advance to second after an error made by left fielder M.J. Rookard. Casey Gillaspie stepped up to the plate and singled to right field to score Hernandez from second base to give the Monarchs a 1-0 lead.
Nick Belzer had a dominant performance over the RailCats. He retired eight straight hitters from the second inning on until he nicked Jackson Smith with a pitch in the bottom of the fifth. He managed to pitch around this, striking out three hitters to preserve the Monarchs 1-0 lead entering the sixth. Belzer finished his night with an impressive line of eight strikeouts, one hit, and zero runs through five innings of work.
The Monarchs had a productive sixth inning, scoring five runs with RBI’s from David Thompson, Pete Kozma, and Willie Abreu. The team finished their half with a commanding 6-0 lead over the RailCats.
The RailCats struggled offensively, collecting a mere one hit on the night. The team couldn’t get any offense going, leaving seven runners on base in nine innings.
The Monarchs loaded the bases in the seventh. They were able to tack on one more run as Pete Kozma walked, which brought in Matt Adams to give the Monarchs a 7-0 lead.
Jacob Lindgren picked up where Belzer left off. After hitting Michael Woodworth in the sixth inning, he struck out five straight hitters and allowed no runs or hits through two innings.
In the ninth inning, Jameson McGrane struck out three batters to shut the door on the RailCats.
The Monarchs will face the RailCats in game two of the four-game series Tuesday at 11 a.m. The game can be heard on the Monarchs Broadcast Network with the pre-game beginning at 10:35 a.m. and the video stream airing on aabaseball.tv.