Travelers bide time, jump on Missions

For the victory-starved Arkansas Travelers, a 2-hour, 5-minute delay to start Saturday’s game was worth the wait.

Ryan Casteel hit a threerun home run in the first inning and finished with 4 RBI to lead the Travelers to a 6-0 victory over the San Antonio Missions in front of 4,768 fans at Dickey-Stephens Park.

Starter Dylan Unsworth and relievers Darin Gillies and Zac Curtis limited the Missions to four hits to give the Travs their second victory in the past seven games. San Antonio had only two base runners reach third base.

“They were busting me in and trying to pitch inside on me,” said Casteel, who hit a home run off San Antonio starter Brett Kennedy that sailed high over the wall in left field. “He left a slider, a hanging slider, over the plate and I didn’t miss it. We got on the board early and we kept the pedal to the metal.”

It never rained at Dickey-Stephens despite ominous clouds overhead. The grounds crew battled a stiff wind and covered the infield shortly before the 6:10 p.m. scheduled start. The tarp came off at 7:30 and Unsworth tossed the first pitch at 8:15.

“We’ll wait a couple of hours if it means we can get a win,” Travs Manager Daren Brown said. “Dylan was obviously really good tonight … and the home run from Ryan Casteel got us off to [a] good start and we tacked on some runs from there. Overall, I thought it was a pretty solid ballgame.”

Unsworth (6-6) struck out four and walked two. He retired the final seven batters he faced.

“I’ve had a couple of starts where I’ve had to wait around,” Unsworth said. “It’s just been going that way for me this season. … You stick around and just try to stay loose until they say the game’s called off or the game’s at 8:10. I try to stay relaxed, locked in and not overthink things.”

It turned out to be the

Travs’ turn to bust out to an early advantage after giving up first-inning leads of 6-0 and 3-0 the two previous nights.

Unsworth retired the Missions on one hit in the first inning, then Travs lead-off batter Ian Miller led off the bottom of the first with a line shot that struck Kennedy on his backside.

Chuck Taylor’s one-out single advanced Miller to third and Casteel followed with his third home run of the season.

“I didn’t know if it was going to stay fair or if it was going to hook foul,” Casteel said. “That’s why I stayed at the plate a little longer than usual. Thankfully, it stayed fair.”

Keury De La Cruz added a two-out RBI single in the fourth inning to make it 4-0.

Casteel, who now has 301 professional career RBI, increased Arkansas’s lead to 5-0 in the fifth inning with a sacrifice fly.

The Travelers added their final run in the seventh inning on Adam Law’s double-play groundout.

Kennedy (7-4) struck out 5, but he gave up 8 hits and 5 earned runs. Kennedy had won his four previous starts.

Gillies gave up a hit in the eighth inning and Curtis walked two and hit a batter to load the bases in the ninth. Curtis did, however, strike out the side.