SERIES IN FRISCO EVENS WITH BACK-TO-BACK LOSSES

After opening up a series against the Frisco RoughRiders with two wins, the Northwest Arkansas Naturals have fallen each of the last two nights, 10-3 and 10-7, to even the series at two wins a piece.

Thursday night at Riders field was all Frisco, despite early scoring from Northwest Arkansas. Blake Perkins led off the game with a home run and four batters later, Travis Jones doubled in a second run, but the RoughRiders laid five runs on the Naturals in the second and held control of the game for the rest of the night.

MJ Melendez connected on his ninth home run of the season to lead off the fourth to bring the Naturals within four, but three more runs scored by the RoughRiders put the game well out of reach.

Drew Parrish could not pitch out of the second inning in his Double-A debut, surrendering five runs in 1.2 innings. Derrick Adams was tagged for three home runs in 2.1 innings of work, but Nolan Watson and Colin Snider combined for four innings of one-run baseball with three strikeouts to keep the game from getting out of hand at the end.

After being down early Friday night, the Naturals stormed back in the second half of the game, nearly taking a series lead from Frisco.

After the RoughRiders jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first, and added two more runs in the fifth, the Naturals slowly chipped away between the fifth and seventh innings.

In the fifth inning Friday, Rudy Martin started the scoring with an RBI single for Northwest Arkansas.

Jones brought Northwest Arkansas within two on a two-run homer in the sixth and Dairon Blanco tied the game in the seventh with a two-run shot of his own. For each Jones and Blanco, it was their third home run of the season.

While Frisco jumped back to take the lead in the bottom of the seventh and add four runs of insurance in the eighth, Northwest Arkansas made the game interesting in the ninth. The first four batters of the inning reached on hits, with Martin singling in Brhet Bewley and Clay Dungan bringing home Blanco.

With the tying run at the plate, then on first base after a Nick Pratto (MLB Pipeline’s No. 9 Royals’ prospect) walk, the Naturals could not push any more runs across the scoreboard, leaving the bases loaded Friday night for the 10-7 loss.

Austin Cox (MLB Pipeline’s No. 10 Royals’ prospect) struck out three, while allowing three earned runs in a five inning start and Andres Nunez struck out three as well, but took the loss, as he surrendered the go-ahead run in the seventh.

Carlos Sanabria took over for Josh Dye in the 8th inning to stop the bleeding and give the Naturals an opportunity to nearly come back in the ninth.

Marcelo Martinez will start for the Naturals Saturday, as Northwest Arkansas will once again attempt to secure a series split and push back up to a .500 record on the season.