Late Inning Agony for Travs Friday Night
Published on June 9, 2012 under Texas League (TL1)
Arkansas Travelers News Release
Springdale, Arkansas - The recently reliant Travelers bullpen faltered twice on Friday night blowing two late leads in a 5-4 ten-inning loss at the hands of the Northwest Arkansas Thunder Chickens at Arvest Ballpark. Eric Duncan produced the winning RBI for the second time in this series with a bases-loaded infield single to cap a three-hit night. The T-Chickens collected 17 base hits, including 14 singles, and nine hits in the last three innings. Angel Castillo, Darwin Perez and Casey Haerther each had two hits for the Travs, who dropped their third straight to the Thunder Chickens.
Northwest Arkansas moved into a tie for first place at 32-27 with Tulsa's loss to Springfield. The Travs fall to 23-36 including a TL-worst 8-23 on the road. The Travs' extra inning record now sits at 1-5.
The first seven innings moved along at a brisk pace with both the Travs' Ariel Pena and NWA's Noel Arguelles scattering base hits with only one run allowed. Pena allowed eight hits and two walks over six innings adding six strikeouts. His only run though came on a home run by Thunder Chickens first baseman Johnny Whittleman leading off the second inning.
Arguelles had base runners in each of the first four innings, but induced two double plays while catcher Julio Rodriguez threw out Castillo and Perez on attempted steals at second base in the third. Arguelles faltered in the fourth inning when the Ryan Mount, Haerther and Roberto Lopez strung together two-out singles to tie the game. The lefty settled in though at the end of his seven innings retiring 10 of 11 batters.
Once the bullpens of both teams got involved the game became much more interesting. First out was Thunder Chickens righty Tim Sexton for the eighth inning. Castillo opened the inning with a single and would score when Jean Segura lined a triple to right field to break the tie. Renny Osuna followed with a drive off the top of the left field fence to make it a 3-1 lead. Sexton left Osuna on base and closed the inning getting Mount on a fly ball and Haerther on a grounder.
Caleb Graham had worked the seventh inning in relief of Pena, then Andrew Taylor came out for the eighth allowing a leadoff triple by Whittleman off the centerfield wall. Mario Lisson brought Whittleman to the plate with a chopper to the hole at shortstop beating Segura's throw for a single. Then Segura just missed stopped a hard liner by Paulo Orlando, who singled to center then stole second base and took third on a throwing error by Carlos Ramirez. Taylor rebounded to strike out Carlo Testa then got locked into a 15 pitch battle with NWA second baseman Rey Navarro. Christian Scholl relieved Taylor to face Julio Rodriguez, who took the first pitch for a strike. Thunder Chickens manager Brian Poldberg took exception t o a call by plate umpire Alex Ortiz and was ejected after a short argument. When the at-bat resumed Rodriguez lined a game-tying double to left field knocking in Orlando. Navarro also attempted to score the go-ahead run, but was cut down at the plate on a relay throw from Rian Kiniry to Segura.
Patrick Keating (2-0) set the Travs down in order in the ninth inning, while Scholl and Dakota Robinson pieced together the bottom of the ninth.
Keating came back for the tenth inning and Perez lined a one-out triple to the right-field gap in front of Segura, who drove in his second go-ahead run of the night with a sacrifice fly to deep right.
Daniel Tillman got his third save chance becoming the sixth Travs pitcher to appear in the game. He fielded Orlando's bunt attempt for the first out of the inning, but walked Testa then allowed Navarro to punch a single. On a 2-2 count Tillman plunked Rodriguez to load the bases and put the winning run at second base. Tillman got the second out with a strikeout of Yem Prades, but he followed that with a game-tying walk to Colon. Duncan's game-winning hit was a high chop on the third-base side of the pitcher's mound. Tillman was forced to wait for the ball to come down and threw wildly to first base while Navarro scored from third to set off a wild on-field Thunder Chicken cluckabration.
Time of game was 3:40 and the paid attendance was 5,847.
The Thunder Chickens are back to being the NW Arkansas Naturals again on Saturday night as they go for the sweep of the Travs. Orangel Arenas (2-6, 5.93) takes the mound for the Travs against NWA's Michael Mariot (1-2, 5.02).
Texas League Stories from June 9, 2012
- Drillers Lose on Mantle Night at Oneok Field - Tulsa Drillers
- Missions Salvage Series Finale - Frisco RoughRiders
- Cardinals Beat Tulsa 4-3 - Springfield Cardinals
- Naturals Sweep Travs - Northwest Arkansas Naturals
- Missions Defeat Frisco 9-4, Avoid Sweep - San Antonio Missions
- Game Notes, June 9 vs. Midland - Corpus Christi Hooks
- Late Inning Agony for Travs Friday Night - Arkansas Travelers
- 'Riders Claim Fourth Series against Misions - Frisco RoughRiders
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