LITTLE ROCK — For whatever reason, the runs have stopped coming for the Arkansas Travelers.
The Travelers’ offense ground to a near halt in Tuesday’s series-opening loss to the Springfield Cardinals, and there was only a little discernible improvement in a 4-2 loss Wednesday night before 3,632 at Dickey-Stephens Park in North Little Rock.
The two runs the Travelers scored were two more than they scored the night before, when the Cardinals beat Arkansas 4-0 despite Arkansas pitchers combining for 15 strikeouts. And Travelers Manager Bobby Magallanes couldn’t f ind fault with Wednesday night’s hit totals, with Arkansas matching Springfield with eight hits.
But it didn’t equate to runs.
“We started rallies, we just couldn’t finish them off,” Magallanes said. “We had runners in scoring position. We had some chances to score some guys.”
Getting men on base, especially of late, hasn’t been an issue with the Travs. When the offense does sputter, it usually happens like it did Wednesday, with runners on base failing to score. Arkansas was 1 for 6 with runners in scoring position.
Springfield took an early lead when Andrew Brown hit a second-inning home run to left field off Travs starter Andrew Taylor. Arkansas answered with two third-inning runs, including a go-ahead single to center field by Andrew Romine that brought home Efren Navarro.
But the Cardinals scored two in the fourth, one on a bizarre play when Chris Swauger hit a single to rightfield that was misplayed by Tyson Auer. Auer’s error sent Xavier Scruggs home, though the throw from Auer appeared to beat him to the plate.
But Travs catcher Jose Jiminez dropped the ball. He was also charged with an error when Swauger advanced to third on the dropped ball.
“It can’t just be one play,” Magallanes said. “But that one inning, we probably could have gotten out of it. But that’s the game of baseball. We can blame it on the defense, but we had our chances to score some runs and we didn’t.”
Cardinals starter Brian Broderick struck out five over 6 2 /3 innings.
“One thing about Broderick, he started throwing his sinker,” Magallanes said. “He did a good job of establishing that sinker down, and we were just pounding some of that stuff into the ground. I give him credit for that.”
Corpus Christi at San Antonio, 7:05 p.m.
NW Arkansas at Tulsa, 7:05 p.m.
Springfield at Arkansas, 7:10 p.m.
Sports, Pages 21 on 07/29/2010