Travs exhale, lead standings

Two runs usually aren't a lot in baseball games. But they meant quite a bit in the final innings of a close series Monday night.

Sean Coyle's seventh-inning triple to left field scored Zach Welz to break a 1-1 tie,. Then he scored on a wild pitch and the Arkansas Travelers opened up a comparatively large lead in a 5-1 victory over the Northwest Arkansas Naturals at Dickey-Stephens Park in North Little Rock.

"It felt like a lot, I'm telling you" Travelers Manager Mark Parent said of the late lead. "It's like we finally had a little breathing room."

Any chances to exhale had been lacking this series. The Travs won Saturday's game 3-2 and the Naturals won 2-1 on Sunday, and at no point had either team held more than a one-run lead. It was the same entering the seventh inning Monday, when Welz hit a two-out single and scored on Coyle's high-arching triple down the left field line off Eric Stout.

Coyle then scored when Stout's pitch to David Fletcher went to the backstop. In the next inning, Jabari Henry added to the lead with a home run to left, his 14th of the season but his first since July 8, a span of 43 games. Bo Way then doubled and scored on Caleb Adams' single as the Travs broke open a game in the late innings to end a close series.

"They hit and we didn't," Naturals Manager Vance Wilson said. "Going down the stretch, you've got to be able to compete. Their pitchers threw well, so did ours, but they hit and we didn't. That's just the way it goes."

The victory put the Travs back in first place of the Texas League North Division second-half standings. Each game this series caused a change at the top of the standings, and the Travs will take a half-game lead into a five-game series over four days against Springfield that begins today.

"Everybody is on the bus and everyone is trying to go ahead and put a ring on their finger," Coyle said. "It's cool to play 140 games all year and to come to the end of the year and play games that mean something."

Northwest Arkansas returns home for four games against Tulsa, then host Arkansas for a three-game series to close the regular season.

"It's okay to see the light at the end of the tunnel," Wilson said. "But our intent has got to be when we're out there not only trying to win the game, but the perception and approach looks like we're trying to win the game."

Sports on 08/30/2016

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