Drillers Cruise Past Cardinals In Springfield

The Tulsa Drillers began their series in Springfield in ideal fashion with a 7-1 win over the Cardinals Monday night.

Taylor Featherston's monster night combined with yet another masterful start from Carlos Hernandez to produce the Tulsa victory.

The game remained scoreless until the fourth inning, when Featherston drove home the game's first run. After Delta Cleary Jr. led off the inning with a base hit to center field, Tyler Massey grounded into a force out and replaced Cleary Jr. as the runner on first.

Featherston then drove a ball to the right field wall in the next at-bat for his fourth triple of the season, scoring Massey and giving Tulsa a 1-0 lead.

The Drillers' top of the order exploded in the top of the sixth. After Cleary Jr. and Massey both reached base to begin the inning, Featherston struck again. The second baseman hit the third pitch he saw over the left field wall for his team-leading 12th home run of the season, breaking his tie with Ryan Casteel and giving Tulsa a 4-0 lead.

Casteel refused to allow Featherston to be in sole possession of the home run lead for long, however, as he also put a ball over the left field wall in the next at-bat, putting the Drillers up 5-0.

Springfield recorded its only run of the night in the bottom of the sixth when Patrick Wisdom took a line drive back up the middle to score Breyvic Valera from second.

Tulsa added two more insurance runs in the top of the ninth when Massey singled home Langfels and Swanner, scoring the Drillers' sixth and seventh runs of the game.

Carlos Hernandez picked up his fourth win of the season by continuing his very strong season. Hernandez gave up only one earned run on four hits and one walk in six innings of work while striking out four.

The outing improved the lefty's ERA to 2.74 and resulted in his third win in his last three starts.

Featherston led Tulsa's offense with three hits and four RBI. Ironically, despite having the second most doubles in the Texas League this season, Featherston was only a double short of the cycle Monday night. Casteel and Massey also had multiple-hit efforts on the evening.