HEASLEY STRIKES OUT EIGHT BUT NATURALS DROP SERIES FINALE TO HOOKS

Northwest Arkansas Naturals starting pitcher Jonathan Heasley retired the first seven he faced and struck out eight across four innings of work, but after the Corpus Christi Hooks scored a pair of runs in the third, they held the lead the rest of the way on Sunday night for a 5-2 win over the Naturals.

Heasley (MLB Pipeline’s No. 14 Royals’ prospect) struck out the first four he faced and the stretch of seven consecutive batters retired to start the game gave him 20 in a row sat down in order, dating back to his start on Tuesday where he retired the final 13 of his outing.

The first trouble Heasley ran into were back-to-back homers from Corpus Christi with one out in the third inning and the Hooks added three more runs of insurance off of lefty Garrett Davila that proved to be the difference in the three-run loss.

Brewer Hicklen put the Naturals up early in the first, tripling home Meibrys Viloria in the second, but he was thrown out trying to score on after an errant throw to third when he slid in.

Clay Dungan continued his strong offensive week with his 10th hit of the series in the 8th inning, an RBI single that scored Blake Perkins and brought the tying run to the plate, but the comeback fell short and the Naturals couldn’t add on any more.

Josh Dye and Andres Nunez combined to retire the final seven Hooks hitters of the night and 10 of the last 11. Heasley, Davila, Dye, and Nunez combined for 14 strikeouts in the loss.

After an off day Monday, the Naturals hit the road for the final time in 2021 for six games in Wichita against the Wind Surge. With 12 games to go, Northwest Arkansas (57-50) sits 2.5 games back of the Frisco RoughRiders for the second playoff spot in the Double-A Central and 4.5 back of Wichita for the top spot in the league.