Logan Moon and his Northwest Arkansas Naturals teammates had watched opportunities to take control of a game and a division go by in virtually every inning Sunday night.
But Moon, enjoying an up-and-down debut season in Class AA, mustered two clutch at-bats that put the Naturals back inf first place.
First, Moon tripled off Arkansas starter Jordan Kipper and scored in the eighth inning, then he doubled in the 10th and scored on a Mauricio Ramos to give the Naturals a 2-1 victory at Dickey-Stephens Park in North Little Rock.
"It showed a lot by our team tonight," said Moon, a former Central Arkansas player. "It didn't seem like any inning we went out there and threw at bats away. That was a tough playoff-type game, so it's good for our morale."
It's good for the Naturals with regard to the second-half standings in the Texas League North Division, too. Northwest Arkansas jumped Arkansas to take a half-game lead in the division standings with a week left in the regular season. The teams close a three-game series tonight, then end the regular season with three games in Springdale that starts Saturday.
If this series is any indication, the teams will need every game to decide the second-half playoff representative.
A night after the Travs won 3-2 on a seventh-inning double, the Naturals outlasted Kipper, gave up 8 hits and only 1 run while striking out 4 over eight innings. Naturals starter Erik Skoglund matched Kipper for seven innings, holding the Travs to 1 run on 5 hits and striking out 8.
The Travs lone run came in the first inning when David Fletcher reached on an infield single, moved to third on an Alex Yarbrough single and scored on a sacrifice fly.
But the Travs stranded seven more runners and were 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position. They left runners on second and third in the sixth and on first, had runners on first and second with no outs in the ninth but failed to score and left the tying run on second in the 10th.
"It's little things here and there," Arkansas Manager Mark Parent said. "Some times, it's just a matter of getting a guy in from third."
Sports on 08/29/2016