'Hounds Drop Wild One in Springdale
It's gotta be here, somewhere, because Saturday night's game at Arvest Ballpark in Springdale, Arkansas had just about everything except, as the saying goes, the kitchen sink.
Item # 1: The RockHounds and Northwest Arkansas Naturals combined for 23 runs on 32 hits ... 16 for each club ... with the Naturals taking a 14-9 win.
Item # 2: The 'Hounds had scored three runs in 27 innings in the 3-game series at Tulsa ... they scored five in the first inning at NW Arkansas Saturday nght.
Item # 3: The Naturals trailed, 7-1, before erupting for seven runs in the fourth inning, taking an 8-7 lead. After a solo home run from Jeff Baisley tied the game at 8-8, the Naturals regained the lead, 11-8, with a 3-run seventh.
Item # 4: RockHounds manager Darren Bush was ejected ... understandably ... after a pair of missed calls cost the RockHounds at least one run in the seventh. Alex Valdez was called out on a "neighborhood play" force out, a play on which a wide throw clearly pulled the fielder off the bag. "Bushy" argued the call, to no avail. Moments later, Val Majewski drove in a run (which would have been two had Valdez not been called out) on what appeared to be a triple to left-center. Instead, Majewski was called out at third and the RockHounds manager was ejected for his instantaneous reaction. As the radio broadcaster said, "... It should have been 11-10 Naturals at the most." That was the Naturals' radio broadcaster, by the way. Not to mention a runner at third and one out.
Item # 5: After a third missed call on what should have been the last out of the eighth inning, the Naturals took advantage, adding three insurance runs, two driven in by shortstop Chris McConnell. Entering the game hitting .233, McConnell went 4-for-4 with two singles, a double, a triple and SIX runs batted in. Northwest Arkansas' Louis Coleman was outstanding, earning the win with 4.1 innings, entering the game in the fifth and going the rest of the way.
Item # 6: In four games this season, the RockHounds and Naturals have split the four games, and have combined to score fifty-two (52) runs on (103) one hundred three hits!