Fill-ins help Frisco topple Travelers

Major League Baseball's showcase for its best prospects borrowed two key pieces from the Frisco RoughRiders' lineup.

Frisco still had plenty left for the Arkansas Travelers.

While left fielder Nick Williams and right fielder Nomar Mazara were in Cincinnati preparing for today's All-Star Futures Game, their fill-ins helped score two runs in the first and five in the fifth in a 7-6 victory Saturday night over the Travs at Dickey-Stephens Park in North Little Rock.

Preston Beck, who played left, scored twice and Zach Cone, who played right, scored a run and drove in two for the RoughRiders, who led 7-0 after five innings and held on for their fourth consecutive victory.

Acting manager Mike Micucci, filling in during Travs Manager Bill Richardson's weekend vacation, said he didn't think too much about Williams and Mazara missing Saturday's game or how it impacted Saturday's game.

"It's minor-league baseball," Micucci said. "They could have moved them to Triple-A. They just so happen to be in the Futures Game."

Micucci, a minor league field coordinator for the Los Angeles Angels, was more interested in the Travs' at-bats over the last four innings.

Frisco's Edwar Cabrera, in his third start of the year, held the Travelers to just a first-inning single by Blake Gailen through five innings. But Cabrera left after the fifth and the Travs jumped on Frisco's bullpen, just like they had in a 3-2 victory Friday against Midland.

Trailing 7-0, Anthony Bemboom singled, Eric Stamets doubled and Bemboom scored on a balk by Lendy Castillo. After Sherman Johnson walked, Drew Maggi drove in two runs with a single to make it 7-3.

Then, in the eighth, Gailen doubled down the left-field line to score one run and Michael Snyder drove in two runs with a double off the top of the wall in left-center field.

D'Arby Myers lined out to end the eighth, and David Martinez, Frisco's sixth pitcher, worked around a leadoff single by Mike Fish.

"We definitely grinded," said Gailen, who went 2 for 4. "We easily could have gotten sad and sulked and that could have been it. If there's such a thing as a moral victory, it showed tonight. We were basically a hit away."

Micucci told his team as much after the game.

"I couldn't be happier with what they did," he said.

The Travs might have extended their three-game winning streak had their first few innings been cleaner.

While Cabrera was holding the Travs to one hit, Arkansas starter Mike Antonini walked the first two batters he faced and gave up a two-run double that put Frisco ahead 2-0. Then, in a five-run fifth, Black singled and scored on a throwing error by catcher Stephen McGee, Ryan Cordell and Luis Mendez each drove in a run with a single, and Cone added a two-run single.

"There are things that we could have obviously cleaned up, but it would have been relatively easy to just kind of shut it down and say you'll get them tomorrow," Micucci said. "On the flip side, I think we made them use some guys in the bullpen they weren't planning on using."

ROCKHOUNDS 2, NATURALS 0

Midland scored the game’s only runs in the top of the first inning as the Rock-Hounds defeated the Naturals in front of an announced crowd of 5,194 Saturday night at Arvest Ballpark in Springdale. Matt Angle led off the game with a single off Northwest Arkansas starter Jonathan Dziedzic (4-6) and was sacrificed to second by Chad Oberacker. Angle stole third before Rangel Ravelo walked with one out. Second baseman Alex Liddi’s error scored Angle with the first run before Colin Walsh’s single to left field scored Ravelo with the game’s final run.

Sports on 07/12/2015