On a night when the scuffling Arkansas Travelers managed to string together some hits, it was their defense and pitching that let them down.
The Travelers outhit the RockHounds 7-6 but lost the game 6-3 in front of an announced crowd of 3,844 at Dickey-Stephens Park in North Little Rock on Monday.
The Travelers, completing an 0-6 homestand after a 5-1 road trip to Frisco and Midland, are 8-10 in the second half.
Midland scored three unearned runs in the first and three more runs in the third -- all earned -- off Travs starter Orangel Arenas (5-6), who needed 44 pitches to get out of a first inning that included two infield singles, an error by shortstop Eric Stamets, three walks and a sacrifice fly.
"We invented a different way to lose tonight," Arkansas Travelers Manager Phillip Wellman said. "We didn't pitch very well. We made a couple of nonplays defensively. A couple of bad decisions defensively -- which has usually been our strength. That's the thing, you can't point to one reason for the way we've been playing."
The Travelers entered Monday's game leading the Texas League with a .981 fielding percentage. Arkansas had committed 59 errors in 87 games -- 20 fewer than Corpus Christi, the team with the next fewest errors.
Stamets' error and Arenas' walked allowed Midland to send nine batters to the plate in the first.
"The guys came out aggressive in the first inning," Midland Manager Aaron Nieckula said. "Arenas is a good pitcher. He's got good stuff. We've seen him before. Maybe he didn't have his best stuff, but we took advantage of some shaky defense there in the first inning and put ourselves in a good position."
The Travelers scored an unearned run in the bottom of the first when Alex Yarbrough laced a one-out double into right field and advanced to third on a failed pick-off attempt by Rockhounds starter Shawn Haviland.
Yarbrough scored on Matt Long's RBI groundout to first to make it 3-1. The run became unearned when Brian Hernandez struck out to end the inning.
Midland made it 6-1 in the top of the third, knocking out Arenas, who threw 81 pitches in 2 2/3 innings.
Arkansas showed some life in the bottom of sixth. Travelers right fielder Adam Melker hit a one-out home run to right. Maikol Gonzalez followed with a double to left and Yarbrough knocked in Gonzalez with a double to right to make it 6-3.
Haviland (5-5) got out of the inning by getting Long on a groundout and Hernandez on a fly ball to center.
The Travelers entered the contest batting .158 (24-153) for the homestand, coming off a six-game road trip where they batted .313 (67-214). At Midland last week, the Travelers had 18 hits in a 10-4 victory. Those 18 hits were more than 15 hits the Travelers managed in the RockHounds' three-game sweep in North Little Rock.
Sports on 07/08/2014