Ashton Goudeau can hope Thursday's complete-game effort is the turning point of his season.
Goudeau, a 26-year-old right-hander, turned in his best performance of the season, holding Frisco to four singles in leading the Arkansas Travelers to a 4-0 victory over the RoughRiders in the first game of a doubleheader at Dickey-Stephens Park in North Little Rock.
Frisco salvaged the final game of the three-game series with a 6-0 victory in Thursday's second game.
Goudeau (1-3) struck out 5 and walked 2 in an 86-pitch outing.
"He's had a couple of good ballgames and he's had a couple of rough ballgames," Travs Manager Daren Brown said. "Today he did a good job of commanding all of his pitches for the most part. He had some stretches where he had a few walks that he could have taken care of. But overall he did a nice job."
Goudeau held Springfield to two earned runs in a 4-0 loss in his Travs debut on July 22. He was also saddled with losses on July 27 and Aug. 1 to Tulsa, the last of which he gave up 3 runs and 7 hits in 4 innings. He was 1-5 with Class AAA Tacoma and 1-1 with Class A Modesto. Goudeau lowered his earned-run average from 6.32 to 4.37 with Thursday's shutout.
Arkansas made the most of two hits. Catcher Joseph Odom drove in two runs with a two-out single in the second inning. Joey Curletta and Dario Pizzano hit back-to-back sacrifice flies in the third to account for all of the Travelers' runs.
"It was nice to get some run support early and to be able to shut them down after we scored," said Goudeau, who was born in Newport but moved to Missouri before his first birthday. "Odom and I were on the same page all night, and it just worked out. It was a good game."
Frisco's leadoff batter reached base in the second, third and fourth innings, but the RoughRiders never advanced a runner to second. The Travs turned one double play and Odom threw out one runner attempting to steal and another attempting to advance when the ball got away from the catcher.
"I was locating my slider really well and getting my change-up into play, but mostly it was fastball location," Goudeau said. "I changed speeds and tried to keep them off balance with my fastball."
Frisco starter Justin Topa (2-3) was removed in the second inning because of an injury.
Jonathan Hernandez (4-4) struck out nine and allowed only two hits for Frisco in Thursday's second game. The right-hander gave up three walks and worked out of a bases-loaded jam in the sixth by getting Beau Amaral to line out to left field.
Frisco banged out 12 hits, getting three each from Michael De Leon and Luis Yander La O.
Sports on 08/10/2018