SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — His walk-up song has changed from Drake’s ‘God’s Plan’, but Blake Drake may have a lot of bad things they wishin’ on him down in Springdale.
Drake lifted the Cardinals on his bat Monday afternoon, turning on a two-strike, two-out pitch from Yunior Marte and depositing a game-winning home run over the wall in left in the bottom of the eighth.
The two-run shot completed a late Cardinals comeback in a 9-7 win over the Naturals with 4,059 fans watching at Hammons Field.
The win not only salvaged the weekend for Springfield, which hadn’t lost a home series all season before dropping three of the first four games against Northwest Arkansas, but moved the Cardinals back into a tie for first in the Texas League North.
Springfield could find itself alone atop the North, pending the result of Monday’s Travelers and Drillers matchup in Tulsa.
Ian McKinney earned the win for Springfield with 2.1 scoreless and hitless relief innings after entering with two outs in the seventh.
A GAME OF COMEBACKS
Drake’s game-winner brought in Stefan Trosclair, who had just drawn a two-out walk. Trosclair scored three times Monday.
But Springfield’s comeback started an inning earlier when Edmundo Sosa singled home a pair in the seventh that tied the game at 7-7. Sosa previously went deep in the fifth, finishing the game with three hits and three RBIs.
Earlier, the Cardinals had leads of 2-0, 4-0 and 5-3 before the Naturals drew even with two runs in the sixth and pulled ahead 7-5 with two more in the top half of the seventh.
It was Anderson Miller that made things 5-5 with a two-run home run to left. In the seventh, Corey Toups put the Naturals up 7-5 with a two-run homer off Tyler Lyons, who’s in Springfield on a rehab assignment.
Victor Roache gave the Cardinals that initial 2-0 lead when he drove his 14th bomb of the season to straightaway center in the first.
Trosclair got ahold of one in the second for his first career Double-A home run after a call-up this week from High-A Palm Beach. Trosclair’s bomb put the Cardinals up 4-0.
Ellis no-hit the Naturals through 3.1 innings before back-to-back-to-back hits got Northwest Arkansas on the board in the fourth. The rally started with a Nicky Lopez single. Elier Hernandez then drove Lopez home with a triple, and Alex Liddi brought in Hernandez with a single, cutting the Cardinals 4-0 lead in half.
The Naturals crept within 4-3 in the fifth when Toups scored from third on a two-out Erick Mejia infield single that took a hard-luck bounce off Ellis.
ADDITIONAL NOTES
Sosa is now 8-for-11 with two homers and six RBIs over the past three games. Roache’s 14th home run tied him for the lead in that category across all levels of the minors with Padres outfielder Franmil Reyes. Lyons allowed two runs on two hits over 0.2 innings in today’s rehab outing. The Cardinals are now 7-0 in games starting before noon.
UP NEXT
The Cardinals head south tonight for a three-game series in Corpus Christi that begins Tuesday night. The Hooks (25-18) are currently second in the Texas League South. This will be the first series this season between the two teams. Cardinals fans can listen on JOCK 98.7 at 7:05 pm.
Click here for the complete box score.
