The Arkansas Travelers survived a tumultuous seventh inning Thursday night and came away with a much-needed 3-2 victory over the Tulsa Drillers at Dickey-Stephens Park in North Little Rock.
The victory ended a five-game losing streak in front of an announced crowd of 7,019 on Clunker Car Night and kept the Travelers' lead in the Texas League North Division second-half standings at five games over the Springfield Cardinals with 12 games remaining.
Everything almost came undone in the seventh.
Arkansas started the inning with a 3-0 lead and ended it up 3-2, minus Manager Phillip Wellman, who was ejected when he came out to argue after the Travs thought they had executed a hidden-ball trick to pick off Tulsa runner Brian Humphries at third.
"We're fending off the sharks," Wellman said. "But as long as we take care of our business, then we're fine."
The Travs finally did that Thursday night despite the shaky seventh.
Arkansas scored one run in each of the first three innings to take a 3-0 lead, as starter Tyler DeLoach held Tulsa to one infield single through six innings, a stretch Wellman described as "dominant."
In the seventh, DeLoach walked Taylor Featherston and got the next two batters out. But then he walked Jayson Langfels and hit Humphries with a pitch, which caused Wellman to pop out of the Travs' dugout to dispute the call with home-plate umpire Ramon Hernandez.
Michael Brady relieved DeLoach (3-0) and gave up a two-run single to Jared Simon that got the Drillers within 3-2 and put runners on first and third.
That's when the Travs tried a bit of trickery that nearly worked.
Third baseman Brian Hernandez took the ball from shortstop Eric Stamets as the ball was being returned to the infield after Simon's single and went to chat with Brady on the mound. Hernandez kept the ball in his glove when he returned to third base and waited for Humphries to take a lead off third. Hernandez reached out to tag Humphries, but third-base umpire Brett Terry said Humphries got back to third base on time.
Hernandez jumped up and down in frustration, and Wellman came out to argue. Not long into his discussion with Terry, Wellman was ejected for the fourth time this season.
When asked what he thought of the call, Wellman said, "No comment."
Hernandez, whose RBI single in the first inning scored Maikol Gonzalez to give the Travs a 1-0 lead, said he felt tensions rising in an important game and felt the need to turn the tide with a play he learned while playing collegiately at UC-Irvine.
"I try to do it in big situations," Hernandez said. "It almost worked."
Brady got Swanner to strike out to end the inning, which both Hernandez and Wellman called "huge." Jairo Diaz struck out four over two innings to earn his sixth save as the Travs ended their longest losing streak since losing eight in a row to start July.
Eleven of Arkansas' remaining 12 games are against teams directly behind them in the standings.
"There was a little bit of pressure on us," Hernandez said. "At the same time, we've got a lot of confidence in that clubhouse. We know what kind of team we are. We know what we're capable of. We just have to keep working."
Sports on 08/22/2014