With two outs in the ninth inning, Springfield stood one routine ground ball from carrying a one-run lead into the bottom half. Instead, the ball got away, the go-ahead run crossed the plate and a six-run advantage that once seemed sturdy disappeared completely.
Arkansas scored five times in the ninth to hand the Cardinals a 10-7 loss Sunday at Route 66 Stadium, a stunning finish to the final regular-season game under the Springfield Cardinals identity.
Michael Watson began the ninth with a 7-5 lead and retired Bill Knight before Austin St. Laurent singled and Carter Dorighi walked. Watson struck out Anthony Donofrio for the second out, but the Travelers would not give him the third.
Sammy Siani lined an RBI single to center, pulling Arkansas within one. Connor Charping followed with a soft fly near the right-field line that dropped safely as Dorighi came home with the tying run.
Hunter Fitz-Gerald then hit a ground ball to shortstop Jesús Báez, whose fielding error — Springfield’s fourth of the game — allowed Siani to score and gave the Travelers their first lead. Boston Smith drove the next ball to deep center, where it struck the wall for a two-run double. Charping and Fitz-Gerald scored, stretching the sudden deficit to three runs before Watson finally ended the inning with a strikeout.
Lucas Kelly retired three of four Springfield hitters in the bottom of the ninth, closing a game the Cardinals had controlled early. Watson took the loss and his fourth blown save, falling to 4-4. He was charged with two earned runs in the five-run inning.
Springfield’s lead had been built with power and a string of sharp swings. Ian Petrutz broke a scoreless tie in the second, sending a line drive toward the right-field wall that bounced off the fence for a two-run double.
The Cardinals added four more runs in the third. Báez lifted his 25th Double-A home run toward left, where the ball carried just beyond the wall. Won-Bin Cho doubled, and Jack Gurevitch followed by driving a two-run homer to right that cleared the ballpark and reached the roof of a nearby building. Petrutz’s RBI single later in the inning made it 6-0.
Gurevitch finished 2-for-5 with his ninth home run and two RBIs. Báez went 2-for-5 with a homer and a double, while Petrutz went 2-for-4 with a double and three RBIs. Ryan Campos reached three times, collecting two hits, including a double, and a walk.
Arkansas began cutting into the lead in the fourth against Blake Aita. Smith delivered an RBI single, Josh Hood hit a two-run homer and St. Laurent added a sacrifice fly, trimming Springfield’s advantage to 6-4. The Cardinals answered with Cho’s sacrifice fly in the bottom half, but it was their final run of the afternoon.
Fitz-Gerald homered in the sixth to pull Arkansas within 7-5. Aita completed the inning, allowing four earned runs over six innings with two strikeouts and no walks. Nate Dohm held the lead through two scoreless innings, striking out three, before the game unraveled behind Watson.
Smith led Arkansas’s 11-hit attack by going 3-for-4 with a double, a walk and three RBIs. Springfield also finished with 11 hits, but its four errors proved costly against a Travelers club that committed one.
The loss left Springfield 78-59 overall and 47-22 in the second half. An announced crowd of 4,005 watched the Cardinals close the regular season with six early runs, six scoreless innings at the plate and a ninth inning that overturned everything that had come before it.