Loss sends Travs into fifth game
The Arkansas Travelers had a chance to clinch the Texas League Championship Series Saturday night, but they waited a little too long to get started.
They didn’t score until the seventh inning, and that came after the San Antonio Missions’ bats came alive for the first time in the series.
The Missions’ threerun fifth was more runs than they had scored in the whole series before Saturday, and it was enough to hold off a late Travs rally and take Game 4 6-5 in front of an announced crowd of 2,615 at Dickey-Stephens Park in North Little Rock.
The Missions’ victory sets up a decisive Game 5 at 2:10 p.m. today, when the Travs will try again to clinch their seventh Texas League championship and first since 2008.
“They didn’t die,” Arkansas Manager Tim Bogar said. “We had a chance. … With the way they’ve been playing, I have no problems with the way they’re going to bounce back.”
The Travs took a 2-1 series lead when they scored all four runs in the sixth inning or later Friday night. They tried a similar formula Saturday, scoring all five of their runs in the seventh inning or later.
Problem was, a San Antonio offense that had been held to two runs through the first three series games finally broke out when Manager Rich Dauer used his fourth different lineup.
Austin Hedges, who was moved to the No. 3 spot, hit a sacrifice fly to put the Missions up 1-0 in the third, then Austin Buschini, who was moved to the No. 7 spot, hit a sacrifice fly in the fourth to make it 2-0. Robert Gale executed a suicide squeeze bunt that scored Yeison Asencio to make it 3-0.
“We do everything we can possibly do to get a run, whether we’re struggling or going good,” Dauer said. “Anytime you can get an extra run, it really helps. We won by one run, so it helped.”
The decisive runs were aided by a bit of good fortune, too.
Arkansas starter Lay Batista gave up a two-out single to Hedges in the fifth, then hit Robert Kral and walked Jake Blackwood to load the bases. Reliever Elvin Ramirez gave up a bloop single to Asencio to shallow right field. Randal Grichuk dove for the ball, but it skipped over his glove allowing all three runners to score and make it 6-0.
Bogar said Grichuk took a “calculated risk,” but he could not blame him.
“I think he made the right choice,” Bogar said. “It’s a bloop single, if two runs score, it’s 5-0, if he catches the ball, it’s 3-0. I’ve got no problem with him taking a chance right there. If we get out of that inning, it’s totally different.”
The Travs made a game of it.
C.J. Cron and Travis Witherspoon each hit RBI doubles in the seventh, and Ryan Jones hit a pinch-hit, two-run single to left to get the Travs within 6-4. Then, in the eighth, Cron hit a home run to right field, his second in as many nights and his fourth of the postseason, to make it 6-5.
But San Antonio relievers Leonel Campos struck out Robbie Widlansky and Jimmy Swift to end the eighth and Jeremy McBryde worked a perfect ninth to force Game 5.
“We weren’t going to just go down,” Cron said. “Unfortunately it was a little too late. We’re going to go out tomorrow, and it might take us one more day, but we’re going to get it.”
Right-hander Brandon Hynick, who pitched eight innings in a Game 1 loss, will start for the Travs, and the Missions will use right-hander Josh Greer to try to clinch their 13th Texas League title and second in three seasons.
“It’s just an exciting series,” Dauer said. “Two evenly matched teams playing five. Everybody on the field on both teams deserves to be in this game tomorrow.”