Travs get fireworks started early

TRAVELERS 13, CARDINALS 4 The 7,400-plus packed into Dickey-Stephens Park in North Little Rock on a sticky and sweltering Monday evening knew they’d get to see fireworks.

The Arkansas Travelers decided to supplement things with an offensive explosion of their own.

A night after putting up 14 runs in Tulsa — including an 11-run eighth inning — the Travs jumped all over the Springfield Cardinals in a 13-4 rout. Jake Scheiner blasted two home runs, Nos. 9 and 10 of the season, and the hosts scored three runs in four of their eight at-bats, piling up 12 hits as a team.

“You can flip our lineup upside down and get the same production,” Scheiner said. “Top to bottom, our lineup is really, really talented. There are a lot of guys that set the table and it’s a different guy each night that comes in and does the job.”

In Sunday’s series finale against the Drillers, it was Kaden Polcovich getting things going from the leadoff spot — he went 3 for 5 with 4 RBI and a triple, one of three Travelers to turn in a multihit outing.

Monday saw a little more balance from the Travs’ offense. Seven of nine hitters recorded a hit, led by designated hitter Jack Larsen’s 3 for 3 performance, which also included a pair of walks and four runs scored.

One of those runs came on Zach DeLoach’s three-run shot into the Travs’ bullpen with two away in the first inning, getting the fireworks started nearly four hours before the real ones would launch from the Main Street Bridge.

That would’ve been enough offense on most nights with Taylor Dollard on the mound. The Travs’ righty has been one of the best in all of organized baseball, entering the night with a 0.99 ERA.

But Dollard was bitten by Chase Pinder. The Cardinals’ left fielder provided all of his team’s offense on the night, hitting a solo home run and a three-run blast. The first of the two barely found its way over the fence, just sneaking onto the left-field berm a few inches inside the foul pole.

The four earned runs were twice as many as Dollard had surrendered in any of his previous 14 starts this season and more than in his last five outings combined, pushing his to 1.38 on the season.

It didn’t matter, though, as the Travs immediately responded after Pinder’s threerun home run in the top of the sixth made it 7-4.

Patrick Frick found no man’s land in shallow left-center for a bases-clearing double in the bottom of the sixth and Scheiner capped a three-run seventh with a two-run home run in the seventh that flew onto Willow Street beyond the left-field fence.

“It’s definitely [a different feeling],” Scheiner said of the home run. “When you spin the ball right off the bat and get enough backspin like that, you know it’s gone.”