Drillers never trail in win over Naturals

TULSA 12, NW ARKANSAS 8

SPRINGDALE — The Tulsa Drillers kept up their slugging ways Saturday night and won the series against Northwest Arkansas the hard way.

After losing the series opener, Tulsa won three straight capped with a 12-8 win at Arvest Ballpark in front of 5,160 to win just its fourth road series of the year.

Tulsa (16-5 second half, 5041 overall) has won 15 of 23 games against the Naturals this season.

The last three wins by the Drillers over the Naturals (4-16, 39-51) were with the bats.

In their three wins, the Drillers belted nine home runs, including seven solo shots, and had 79 total bases and hit .344 with 31 runs.

Saturday, the Drillers never trailed, taking a 1-0 lead with a solo homer by Drew Jackson in the second inning.

D.J. Peters had three hits Saturday, driving in a run with a double in the fourth inning, singling and scoring in the sixth inning, and driving in another run with another double in the eighth.

Drew Jackson also drove in a run with a single in the fourth for a 3-0 lead.

Northwest Arkansas answered with two runs in the bottom of the fourth, but the Drillers scored three more in the sixth.

Again, in the bottom of the sixth, the Naturals matched the Drillers with three runs as part of a 37-pitch inning.

Tulsa scored another run

in the seventh and put up three more in the eighth only to be matched by three runs by Northwest Arkansas in the bottom of the eighth.

Tulsa never gave up the lead, though, and finished off the series with three more runs in the top of the ninth.

Both pitching staffs were taxed in the game.

Tulsa threw five pitchers, who combined to throw 163 pitches. Northwest Arkansas ran four pitchers to the mound, who combined for 157 pitches.

There were five wild pitches in the game also.

Northwest Arkansas Manager Mike Rojas was ejected in the top of the eighth inning. With a runner on first and one out, Tulsa’s Errol Robinson hit a hard grounder to third, which would have likely been an inning-ending double play, but home plate umpire Jeff Gorman ruled the ball hit off Robinson’s foot and was a foul ball. Rojas disagreed, went back to the dugout and came out to disagree some more and was tossed.

Robinson struck out, but Luke Raley walked and Will Smith clubbed a towering three-run homer to put the Drillers up, 10-5.

Gorman also ejected Northwest Arkansas pitching coach Steve Luebber on Wednesday for arguing balls and strikes.

Tulsa’s Logan Bawcom earned the victory with five innings of work, allowing just two earned runs.

Tyler Goededel had four hits for Tulsa. Peters and Jackson both had three hits.

Elier Hernandez had three hits for the Naturals, and Kelvin Gutierrez drove in three runs.

Foster Griffin took the loss.

SHORT HOPS

■ Northwest Arkansas right fielder Elier Hernandez had 10 hits in 17 at-bats in the fourgame series against Tulsa.

■ Northwest Arkansas Manager Mike Rojas has now been ejected all four months of the season, one time each in April, May, June and July.

■ The two teams combined to score six runs, three by each club, in both the sixth and eighth innings.

On Deck: The Naturals begin a four-game road trip to Springfield today. Northwest Arkansas will start Dallas Beeler (0-0, 17.18) while Springfield will go with Mike O’Reilly (2-4, 4.50). Springfield marks the fourth stop for O’Reilly already this summer. He pitched in three games at Class A-Advanced Palm Beach, threw in two games at Springfield, was promoted to Triple-A Memphis and pitched in six games before going back to Springfield in June. Beeler, a 2010 draft choice out of Oral Roberts University, will make his second Double-A start after going just 3 2/3 innings at Corpus Christi last week and allowing 10 hits and seven runs.

On The Air: KQSM-FM 92.1

On The Web: www.nwa naturals.com