Cards Stun Hooks with Monster Ninth

Box Score

SPRINGFIELD – The Cardinals sent 12 men to bat and scored nine times in the ninth inning Sunday afternoon to beat Corpus Christi, 15-14, at Hammons Field.

Both sides recorded 19 hits as Springfield employing three walk-off wins to claim the series, 4-2.

The Cardinals turned around a 14-6 Hooks surplus by mustering five singles and a game-tying, two-run double by Aaron Antonini in the ninth. Three of their four walks came with the bases loaded, and eight came around with the home club down to its last out.

Corpus Christi produced its season best in hits while matching the 2023 standard for runs.

Each man in the Hooks lineup recorded a knock, with both Luis Aviles Jr. and J.C. Correa turning in 4-for-6 days. Aviles, batting .481 over a six-game hitting streak, doubled twice and knocked in two. Correa, hitting .336 in his last 31 assignments, was a home run shy of the cycle en route to a season-best four RBIs.

Zach Dezenzo blasted a two-run home run to left-center in the second and then crushed an opposite-field dinger to right to open the ninth, giving him four 400-foot homers over a three-day span. Dezenzo, now with three two-homer games in August, has recorded multiple hits while plating runs in each of his last four contests, going 9-for-19 (.474) with three doubles, four taters and nine RBIs.

C.J. Stubbs, Jordan Brewer, and Chad Stevens also had two-hit days. Stevens drove in two runs, with Stubbs and Brewer aiding the team’s double count of seven.

Stubbs, who reached base five times with four walks on Saturday, coaxed three more free passes Sunday.

Corpus Christi generated double-digit runs in three of the six tilts with Springfield, batting .311 as a team with 31 extra-base hits and 48 runs for an average of eight markers per game.