Lovvorn, Naturals celebrate victory

SPRINGDALE — The Northwest Arkansas Naturals gave Zach Lovvorn the best gifts possible for a pitcher on Saturday.

The Naturals provided Lovvorn lots of run support and made some sparkling plays on defense in their 6-1 win over Midland before a crowd of 4,766 at Arvest Ballpark.

Northwest Arkansas (2425) will go for its sixth straight series win in today’s series finale against Midland (24-25). The Naturals will also try to reach the .500 mark for just the third time this season.

Saturday, Lovvorn also did plenty for himself in celebrating his 24th birthday with his best — and longest — outing of the season.

“I couldn’t ask for a better day out there,” Lovvorn said. “The defense played great behind me. After last night, we came up with a plan for today.”

Lovvorn threw seven solid innings and allowed just three hits and an unearned run against a team that pounded out 19 hits the night before in an 11-3 win over the Naturals.

“We definitely saw that they were forcing contact early so I knew I’d have to get the off-speed working and threw something up there that looked like a fastball but isn’t,” Lovvorn said. “That’s what they were really getting to last

night. It goes back to having a plan and executing it.”

Lovvorn threw 97 pitches on Saturday with 64 going for strikes.

“All my pitches were working for me so I was able to execute close to perfect,” Lovvorn said. “It feels really good.”

The Naturals gave Lovvorn an early lead to work with, putting three runs on the scoreboard in the home half of the third inning.

Erick Mejia grounded a single through the hole between shortstop and third to score Corey Toups, who led off the inning with a single. Nicky Lopez followed with a fielder’s choice that scored a hustling Donnie Dewees all the way from second base. Elier Hernandez upped the Natural’s lead to 3-0 with a double into the left-field corner that plated Lopez.

Northwest Arkansas added two more runs with some keen batsmanship.

Alex Liddi, who walked to lead off the fourth inning, crossed the plate on a squeeze play when Toups laid down a one-out bunt.

Hernandez led off the sixth inning with a broken-bat single and advanced to third on Liddi’s hit-and-run single to right. Anderson Miller’s single scored Hernandez for a 5-1 advantage.

Hernandez doubled then scored on Miller’s double in the eighth to pad the lead to 6-1.

Hernandez continued to swing the hot bat for Northwest Arkansas against Midland. Saturday, he had a single and two doubles with an RBI after Friday’s 3-for-4 performance that included a homer.

Miller was 4-for-4 on Saturday and drove in two.

Franco Terrero closed out the final two innings for the Naturals with two scoreless innings, allowing two hits and striking out two.

SHORT HOPS

■ Zach Lovvorn matched a career-high with seven innings on Saturday, which was his longest of this season.

■ Northwest Arkansas has won a franchise-best five series.

On Deck: Former second-round draft pick Scott Blewett (2-3, 5.52) will start for Northwest Arkansas and will go against Norge Ruiz (25, 5.06) for Midland in the series finale. Blewett will make his seventh start of the season at home where he has a 7.62 earned run average. Ruiz was a Cuban defector who signed with the Oakland Athletics in December, 2016 for $2 million after being ranked the No. 3 International prospect at the time. He’s thrown at least 95 pitches in four of his eight starts this season. In July last summer while pitching for Class A Advanced Stockton, Ruiz was caught with a foreign substance on his arm and was suspended 10 games for doctoring the baseball by the California League.

Tonight’s Promotion: Memorial Day weekend postgame fireworks and Kids Eat Free Family Sunday presented by Mini Babybel Cheese. Summer tailgate music theme during the fireworks show. The Mercy kids run the bases following the game today. The Naturals team store is also discounting all merchandise 25 percent off, with military personnel with an ID receiving an addition 10 percent off.

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