Naturals host ’Hounds for six games

SPRINGDALE — The Northwest Arkansas Naturals return home this week to take on Midland after a 3-3 road trip to San Antonio.

The Naturals (3-6) begin a six-game series against the RockHounds, the Class AA affiliate of the Oakland Athletics, tonight in Arvest Ballpark. First pitch is slated for 7:05 p.m.

Naturals Manager Tommy Shields said his team just needs to be a little better with the details. The Naturals dropped back-to-back one-run games to finish the trip to San Antonio. The Mis- sions scored the winning run in both games on wild pitches by Naturals relievers.

“We are competing well,” Shields said. “We’re pitching well. We’re making critical mistakes at critical times in one-run games. Either a base-running mistake here or a wild pitch there. We have to tighten up the little things. We’re doing the big things. We faced a good pitching staff, but we struck out too much this week.”

Northwest Arkansas is hitting just .244 as a team, which ranks seventh in the 10-team Texas League and is ninth in runs scored (35). The Naturals have struck out 104 times, which is just five behind Amarillo’s 109 for the most in the league. They are fifth in team ERA (4.20).

A high spot for Northwest Arkansas has been their first base tandem of Josh Lester and Dillan Shrum. The duo are combined hitting .333 with a home run and 7 RBI to go with 9 runs scored.

“Lester is a professional hitter,” Shields said. “He really knows how to move the ball around the field. And Shrummer had just a fantastic spring training on the back end of his good second half. He’s continued to do that.”

The only problem right now is Shields would like to get both the bats in the lineup at the same time.

“Playing (Cayden) Wallace every day at third and DHing some other guys,” Shields said. “I’ve got two first basemen that can really swing the bat and sometimes one of them is going to be on the bench. It gives me a good pinch-hit option late in the game. But I’d like to have them both in the lineup at the same time.”

Starting pitchers Mason Barnett and Noah Cameron have a combined ERA of 2.25 and are tied for the team-high in strikeouts with 11 each. But they have just one win between them.

Midland (7-2) leads all of Class AA with 15 home runs as a team and leads the league with a team ERA of 2.44. The RockHounds are tied for first in the Texas League South Division. Midland shortstop Jacob Wilson is the top-ranked prospect in the Oakland minor league system according to mlb.com. The 22-year-old hit a go-ahead grand slam against Amarillo last week. He finished with four hits and six RBI in just his fifth game in Class AA.