Wichita’s Varland dominates Naturals in smooth victory

TEXAS LEAGUE WIND SURGE 7, NATURALS 1

SPRINGDALE — Louie Varland was on Thursday night and the Northwest Arkansas Naturals never found a way to turn him off.

The Wichita starter seemed to have his full arsenal of pitches working as the Wind Surge rolled to a 7-1 win at Arvest Ballpark in the third home game of the season for the Naturals.

“It was just one of those games,” Naturals Manager Chris Widger said. “We’d seen Varland before. He threw well against us last year, and we knew what he could do. He pitched well and that’s just the way it goes sometimes”

The Wind Surge ( 1- 5) jumped out to a fast start. An RBI single in the first inning and a two-run homer in the third from Spencer Steer gave Wichita a 3-0, which was more than enough run support for Varland on this crisp spring night.

Varland had a no- hitter going until Maikel Garcia singled to center field in the fourth inning for the Naturals (3-3). The hit was one of only two the right-hander from St. Paul, Minn. gave up in 5.2 innings of work.

“He has a changeup, a nice slider, curveball, his fastball, he located all of them,” Widger said. “He used all of his pitches at any time in the count, and when a guy is doing that and locating those pitches, it just makes for a tough day.”

Wichita extended its lead with a big sixth inning. After the Wind Surge grew the advantage to 5-0 off a bases loaded walk and fielder’s choice run, Cole Sturgeon tacked on two more runs with a double to right field, making the score 7-0.

The Naturals got their only run of the game in the seventh inning when Robbie Glendinning delivered an RBI single to score Sebastian Rivero.

Drew Parrish took the loss for Northwest Arkansas, giving up three runs on four hits over 5.0 innings pitching.

“There’s so many games you play in baseball, and it makes it easy to come back tomorrow,” Widger said. “We know that we’re going to swing it pretty good, and every once in a while you’re going to run into a pitcher who’s throwing well and has good stuff, makes his pitches and does his job. It happens.”

TRAVELERS 3, CARDINALS 2

The Arkansas Travelers (4-3) scored two runs in the bottom of the sixth inning Thursday to break a 1-1 tie, then held on as the Springfield Cardinals (34) tried to rally late in front of 4,565 fans at Dickey-Stephens Park in North Little Rock.

The Travelers took a 1-0 lead in the second inning when Joe Rizzo scored on Patrick Frick’s sacrifice fly to left field. The Cardinals tied the game 1-1 in the fifth inning when Moises Gomez hit a home run on the first pitch he saw — his fourth of the season — to right field.

Arkansas broke the game open in the sixth inning when Zach DeLoach scored on Tanner Kirwer’s RBI single to left field on a full-count pitch. Later in the inning, Springfield second baseman Irving Lopez was charged with an error on Matt Scheffler’s ground ball, which allowed Rizzo to score for a 3-1 lead.

Lopez made up for the error by scoring on Delvin Perez’s sacrifice fly in the eighth inning to cut the lead to 3-2. The Cardinals had runners on first and second with two outs in the top of the ninth inning. A wild pitch by Travs reliever Travis Kuhn moved lead runner Todd Lott to third, but he and pinch runner Matt Koperniak were stranded when Nick Dunn struck out swinging to end the game.

Cade Marlowe was 2 for 3 with a walk to lead the Travelers from the leadoff spot, while DeLoach was 2 for 4. They accounted for four of the Travelers’ seven hits. Gomez was the only Cardinals player with multiple hits, going 2 for 3 with 1 RBI and 1 run scored.