TEXAS LEAGUE: Two late touchdowns propel Naturals

LITTLE ROCK — After a two-day vacation - one the Arkansas Travelers failed to take advantage of - the Northwest Arkansas Naturals’ offense was back to form Thursday.

The Naturals, scoring 15 runs in the final three innings, outslugged the Travelers in a 19-12 victory before 4,607 at Dickey-Stephens Park in North Little Rock, ending the four-game series with three victories.

Northwest Arkansas didn’t get much from its lineup its past two games, as illustrated by Wednesday night’s 1-0 victory over the Travelers. But that was the second of two consecutive shutouts the Naturals had during the series, showing the pitching staff was more than capable of taking up the slack.

But things were back to normal Thursday.

The two teams had a combined 43 hits, with 23 coming from the Travelers. But the Travelers were 5 for 16 with runners in scoring position.

In a marathon of a game that clocked in at just under four hours, Northwest Arkansas trailed 3-0 and 6-4 before taking control.

The final result was a little surprising given that the pitching matchup featured two lefthanders with sub-3.00 ERAs. But neither Arkansas’ Trevor Reckling nor Northwest Arkansas’ Edgar Osuna had their best stuff working, leaving things more in the hands of the offenses.

And the Naturals were up to it.

“Last night, 1-0, was really unfamiliar to us,” Northwest Arkansas Manager Brian Poldberg said. “We got good pitching last night, something that we needed. We had back-to-back shutouts, and tonight a slugfest.”

The Travelers tagged Osuna early, scoring three two-out runs in the bottom of the first inning, two of them off Naturals errors. Northwest Arkansas didn’t score until the third, when Clint Robinson singled to center to score Jeff Howell. But the Travelers added two in the fourth off a two-run home run by Charlton Jimerson, putting the Naturals down 5-1.

That’s when it went south for Arkansas.

A two-out, two-run single by Jamie Romak cut the Travelers’ lead to 5-4 in the fifth, and even another Travelers run in the sixth couldn’t cushion what was to come as Northwest Arkansas outscored Arkansas 15-6 the final three innings.

Johnny Giavotella opened the seventh with a home run off reliver Robert Fish, and Paulo Orlando later ended Fish’s outing with a two-run double down the left field line. Romak then hit a RBI double off new reliever Jeremy Haynes, and Tim Smith and Howell both scored runs on consecutive sacrifice fly balls to left field to make it 10-6 Naturals.

And just like that, the early Travelers lead seemed very far away.

“Everybody had quality at-bats,” Poldberg said. “Everybody had quality at-bats in that big inning, and that’s what we needed.”