TEXAS LEAGUE

'Process' starting to pay off for Travs

The Arkansas Travelers have begun to buy into Manager Daren Brown's message.

Saturday night at Dickey-Stephens Park in North Little Rock, the Travs' 5-4 victory over the Frisco RoughRiders was their seventh in their past 10 games.

Center fielder Chuck Taylor's seventh-inning RBI single broke a 4-4 tie and held up, but catcher Tyler Marlette led the way for the Travs with 2 home runs and 3 RBI before an announced crowd of 6,675.

Moments after the game, as Marlette packed away his equipment in the dugout, the seven-year minor league veteran spoke about the patience he and his teammates have embraced to turn around a 14-24 start.

"Daren has just preached to us that we have to take it one day at a time and trust in the process," Marlette said. "That's what this organization has preached to us the last two years, and it's worked out for us."

The Travs are in their first season as a Seattle Mariners' affiliate. Last season, Seattle was the only major league franchise to have six minor league affiliates make the playoffs, including the Class A Bakersfield Blaze for which Marlette batted .273 with 14 home runs in 83 games.

"Guys are starting to understand who they are and what they need to do," Brown said. "Sometimes it takes a little time, but we had some opportunities to win games early that we just didn't execute at the right time in order to do it. I think we're playing a little bit better fundamental baseball than what we did earlier."

Two errors helped Frisco score a run in the first inning, but Arkansas responded with three hits and three runs in the bottom half, including Marlette's two-run home run that cleared the left-field wall and bounced off the base of the scoreboard.

Marlette led off the fourth inning with his second home run of the game to give the Travs a 4-1 lead.

"I'm just trying to get down and make a good pass at the baseball," said Marlette, who is hitting .268 with 3 home runs and 30 RBI this season. "That's it. I'm just trying to keep it as simple as possible, just get my pitch and put my swing on it."

"He's gotten off to a good start," Brown said. "He's had some ups and downs, but he obviously had a nice game today, and it was good to see. Hopefully we're headed in the right direction with Tyler. It's about consistency and being able to put good at-bats up every night. That's what it takes, and he's getting better at it."

Frisco Manager Joe Mikulik said he is impressed by any offensive production at Dickey-Stephens park.

"The ball just doesn't fly here," he said. "You hit a ball out of this ballpark, it's a legitimate home run."

Travs' right-handed starter Justin DeFratus did not allow an earned run through six innings, but Frisco began the seventh inning with consecutive singles by first baseman Royce Bolinger and shortstop Michael De Leon. Right fielder Scott Heineman's one-out triple put Frisco within 4-3. Second baseman Isiah Kiner-Falefa's single in the next at-bat greeted reliever Tyler Knigge to score Heineman to tie the score.

"I thought DeFratus did a very good job for us," Brown said. "We're executing pitches, and we're obviously doing a better job than we did early in the season."

Knigge (1-1) pitched 1⅓ innings, allowing 2 hits and stirking out 1 to pick up the victory.

Sports on 05/28/2017

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