Tulsa, OK – The Springfield Cardinals connected on six home runs to power past the Tulsa Drillers, 16-5, before 4,878 fans at ONEOK Field on Tuesday night. The Cardinals have won four in a row and are 8-2 in their last 10 games, going for a sweep of the Drillers in the road trip finale in Tulsa on Wednesday.
RF Lane Thomas (3×6, 2 HR, 1 3B, 3 RBI, 3 R) and 2B Andy Young (4×5, 2 HR, 6 RBI, 2 R) both helped pace the attack, while all eight Cardinals position players collected at least one hit with seven of them notching multiple hits.
After the Drillers (20-11, 54-47) plated a pair in the bottom of the first, the Cardinals (13-19, 46-56) swung in front right away in the top of the second with a three-run blast from 2B Andy Young, his first homer in Double-A, to make it 3-2 Springfield.
The Cardinals added two more with solo home runs from RF Lane Thomas and SS Evan Mendoza in the third, opening it to a 5-2 lead.
Young struck again with a solo home run to start the fourth, his second long-ball of the game. One out later with 3B Luke Dykstra at second, Thomas torched an RBI triple to right-center, his second straight game with a home run and a triple in Tulsa. Thomas then came home on an RBI single from CF Blake Drake, making it 8-2.
After LHP Elniery Garcia had closed his 3.0 innings with nine straight outs, RHP Austin Sexton (W, 2-0) took over to start the fourth and picked up where Garcia left off, retiring his first eight batters in a row.
Meanwhile, the Cardinals kept pounding the Drillers in the fifth inning. After a LF Johan Mieses double and a C Andrew Knizner walk, Young brought both runners home with a two-run single, matching a career high with six RBIs on the night and padding the Cardinals lead to 10-2.
The Drillers struck in bottom of the sixth with an RBI double from LF Jacob Scavuzzo, but the Cardinals got the run right back with a run-scoring double play ball hit by Dysktra in the top of the seventh, sending the game into the seventh-inning stretch with Springfield leading, 11-3.
With one on and one away in the bottom of the seventh, Tulsa C Keibert Ruiz sent a fly ball back to the five-foot tall right field wall. RF Lane Thomas, though, jumped at the wall and made a home-run-robbing catch while flipping over the wall into the Drillers bullpen, providing one of the top plays of the year to keep it 11-3.
Right after robbing a homer, Thomas then led off the very next inning and opened the top of the eighth with a solo blast to left field, his second home run of the night and league-best 21st long-ball of the year. After an error and a walk put two runners on, 1B John Nogowski crushed a three-run home run to left field, his seventh homer of the year and second in as many games in Tulsa this series. Mieses followed with his second double of the night, before coming home on an RBI single from Knizner, opening the Cardinals lead to 16-3.
Tulsa got their bats going with solo home runs from 2B Errol Robinson and 3B Will Smith in the bottom of the eighth, but RHP Will Latcham slammed the door with a scoreless bottom of the ninth to close the 16-5 runaway win for the Cardinals.
