Long’s 10th-inning single lifts Arkansas by Frisco

TRAVELERS 4, ROUGHRIDERS 3 (10)

Matt Long said it always takes a few at- bats to get comfortable at the beginning of each season.

He has looked just fine at Dickey-Stephens Park.

The Arkansas Travelers’ left fielder roped a 10th-inning single into left field that scored Jimmy Swift from second base and gave the Travs a 4-3 victory Saturday over the Frisco Rough Riders in front of 5,586 fans in North Little Rock.

Long’s single allowed the Travs to win a game in which they didn’t get a hit until the fourth inning and saw shortstop Rolando Gomez commit a seventh-inning error that gave the Rough Riders a 3-2 lead. Long also drove in Travis Witherspoon in the fourth on a sacrifice bunt.

Long wrapped up the first series of the season hitting .455 (5 for 11) with 3 RBI.

“Sometimes starting off the year with [lots of] adrenaline, you want to get overaggressive and swing the bat so much,” Long said. “It’s nice to get some hits and get those out of the way.”

Swift, a right-hander, pinch hit for Gomez in the bottom of the seventh, not because of the error but because Manager Tim Bogar didn’t want Gomez facing Frisco’s left-handed reliever.

It worked out in the 10th when Swift hit a lead-off single into center field and moved to second base on Witherspoon’s sacrifice bunt. Long then hit a fastball into left field to score Swift and end the game.

“I think we did what we had to do at the right time,” Bogar said. “We didn’t have a lot of hits, we didn’t do a lot of things correctly, but when we had to, we did it right.”

Witherspoon doubled to lead off the fourth, then scored from second base on Long’s sacrifice bunt when he rounded third base and nobody was covering the plate to tie the game 1-1. The Travs then took a 2-1 lead when two Frisco pitchers walked four consecutive batters, the last one Taylor Lindsey that scored C.J. Cron.

Manny Correa, making his first start at Class AA, made it so the Travs’ lack of offense didn’t matter so much. The 24-year-old right-hander gave up a sacrifice fly to Brett Nicholas in the first that gave Frisco a 1-0 lead, but gave up three hits in his first six innings.