Right fielder Drew Heid and the Arkansas Travelers walked off winners Tuesday night with a little help from the San Antonio Missions.
Heid hit a triple into center field in the bottom of the 12th inning and jogged into home with the winning run in a 3-2 victory when the relay throw from Missions shortstop Brian Bixler cleared the head of third baseman Diego Goris.
"I took my hard step [around third base] to get ready to go, and then I saw it go in the dugout and I knew we'd won," said Heid, who raised his hands while trotting home as the Travelers earned their fifth consecutive victory in front of an announced crowd of 3,187 at Dickey-Stephens Park in North Little Rock.
It came nearly an hour after the Travelers had almost won on another error.
The Travelers loaded the bases in the bottom of the ninth with the score tied 2-2 after all three runners reached base with two outs. Travelers catcher Jett Bandy reached on with a walk and advanced to third on a double by Kaleb Cowart before Heid walked to load the bases.
Reliever John Hussey threw a wild pitch and Bandy took off for home, but Missions catcher Austin Hedges gathered the ball off a bounce and dove to home before Bandy to record the third out.
Bandy spiked his helmet and turned to argue the call and was immediately thrown out by home plate umpire Ramon Hernandez. Travelers Manager Phillip Wellman came in from third base to argue the call and was ejected by Hernandez too.
Arkansas jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning.
Left fielder Mikal Gonzalez led off with a single to center field and moved into scoring position by stealing second base. Alex Yarbrough walked before Gonzalez advanced to third on a fielder's choice to second base by Brian Hernandez. Designated hitter Mike Bianucci drove in Gonzalez with a single to right field.
The Missions made Arkansas starter Kramer Sneed pay for the first walk he gave up in the second inning. After retiring the first two batters in the inning, Sneed walked designated hitter Cody Overbeck before first baseman Adam Buschini nearly hit the ball out of the park an onto Willow Street over the left-field wall as the Missions took a 2-1 lead.
The Travelers answered in the bottom half of the inning.
Bandy led off with a single to left field and advanced to second on a single off the pitcher by Heid. Another single to left by Eric Stamets moved Bandy on third, and Gonzalez drove him in with a sacrifice grounder to shortstop that tied the score at 2-2.
Sneed gave up 2 runs and 5 hits with 7 strikeouts and 2 walks over 7 innings before being relieved by Trevor Gott in the top of the eighth.
Former Travelers reliever R.J. Alvarez, who was traded to the San Diego Padres organization in the Angels' deal for Huston Street, relieved Missions starter James Needy in the eighth inning. Gott also was part of that deal, going from the Missions to the Travelers.
Sports on 08/06/2014