Before the champagne and beer flowed in the Arkansas clubhouse on Monday afternoon, the Travelers had to sweat out a perilous ninth inning.
Travs closer Greg Mahle gave up three consecutive hits to start the final inning, but a key pickoff of Northwest Arkansas's Hunter Dozier at first base helped Arkansas hold on for a 3-2 victory in front of announced Labor Day crowd of 6,324 fans at Dickey-Stephens Park.
The Travs victory allowed them to clinch the Texas League North Division second-half title, one game in front of the Springfield Cardinals. Arkansas and Northwest Arkansas will start a best-of-five postseason series Wednesday in Springdale.
Monday's game became a must-win for Arkansas earlier in the afternoon when Springfield claimed a victory over Tulsa. Had Arkansas lost, the Cardinals and Travs would have tied for the second-half crown and Springfield would have qualified for the postseason because the Cardinals held the season-series advantage over Arkansas.
Instead, the Travelers held on for their 27th one-run victory of the season.
"We tried to stay as loose as possible," said Travelers center fielder Chad Hinshaw, who capped a two-run fifth inning with a run-scoring double. "We didn't put any more pressure on ourselves than we would in any other game."
Hinshaw noted that the Travelers had opportunities clinch last week.
"But we don't look back at the past," he said. "We look at the next game. Today was the next game. We knew what we had to do."
The Travelers finished 71-68 in the regular season, 35-35 in the second half, 34-36 at home and 27-20 in one-run games.
Mahle earned his 16th save and his second in as many days. But just like in Sunday's 3-1 victory over the Naturals, the left-hander gave up a run in the ninth, and it turned Monday's game into a nail-biter.
Northwest Arkansas trailed 3-1 in the top of the ninth when center fielder Bubba Starling led off with a hard-hit one-hopper that caught Arkansas shortstop Erick Salcedo flush on the face. Starling wound up with a double and Salcedo with a swollen black right eye.
Dozier followed with a line single to right to place runners on the corners, but with a one-strike count to catcher Zane Evans, Mahle picked off Dozier at first.
"He's got a really good pick-off move and he picked a good time to use it," said Arkansas catcher Anthony Bemboom, who was one of three Travs to post a two-hit afternoon.
Zane followed with a line double to right to score Starling and trim the Travs' lead to 3-2. But the Northwest Arkansas rally died when pinch hitter Frank Schwindel lofted a lazy fly ball to center for the second out and Edward Salcedo, who started the game with a .118 batting average, grounded out to Erick Salcedo to send the Travelers to their clubhouse, where they celebrated a division title for the third year in a row.
Mahle's save made a winner of right-handed starter Albert Suarez (11-9), who gave up 1 run on 3 hits and 3 walks. He struck out six and lowered his season earned run average to 2.98, the lowest of any qualified Texas League pitcher. Suarez also finished the regular season tied for the most victory in the Texas League.
"It was all teamwork," said Suarez, who retired 11 of the final 13 batters he faced. "I was just trying to find the zone.. ... It was really cool to get this done and here we are."
Right-hander Danny Reynolds worked two scoreless innings before Mahle entered in the final inning.
Northwest Arkansas used a two-out first-inning rally o score its lone run off of Suarez. Lane Adams drew a walk, stole second and scored on line drive double to the left-field corner by Alex Liddi.
Arkansas tied it 1-1 in the bottom of the first. Drew Maggi singled, stole second, moved to third on a ground ball and scored on a wild pitch by Northwest Arkansas starter Paul Clemens.
The Travs scored two runs on three hits in the fifth to take the lead for good.
Bemboom started the winning rally with a lead-off bunt single.
"I was just trying to get on base anyway I could," Bemboom said. "I was able to put down a good bunt and then we managed to get some good at-bats after that."
Maggie followed with his second hit, a double to left field that advanced Bemboom to third. Sherman Johnson gave Arkansas a 2-1 lead with a high chopper to second that went for a ground out. Hinshaw finished off the rally with the second double of the inning.
"We're going to play how we know we can," said Hinshaw, who finished the season with a team-high .289 batting average. "All it takes is one inning. We've proven all year long that we can get hot at any time. We've done this all year. We score a few runs and that's enough to win us some games."
The first two games of the North Division Series will be played in Northwest Arkansas on Wednesday and Thursday. The series will then move back to Dickey-Stephens Park Friday for the remainder of the season. The winner of the North will play the South series champion starting on Tuesday, Sept. 15, at the South Division's home park.
Sports on 09/08/2015