Darvill's Homer Beats Naturals

This time last year, Wes Darvill was playing for <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Winnipeg in the independent American Association. Friday night, he delivered a game-winning home run for the Tulsa Drillers. Darvill's first homer at the Double-A level since 2015 broke a tie game and gave the Drillers a 5-4 win at Northwest Arkansas.
The victory was the eighth in the past nine games for the first-place Drillers and kept them 2.5 games in front of second-place <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:state w:st="on">Arkansas.
The Drillers took a quick lead in Friday's victory as Errol Robinson led off the game with a base hit and eventually scored when Zach Reks drew a bases-loaded walk.
The Naturals responded with a run in the bottom of the first, then took the lead with a three-run second inning. Nick Dini put <st1:place w:st="on">Northwest Arkansas in front with a two-run homer. One out later, Khalil Lee doubled and scored on a base hit by former Drillers infielder Erick Mejia that gave the Naturals a 4-1 lead.
The <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Tulsa comeback began when Robinson led off the top of the fourth with his seventh home run of the season.
The Drillers tied the game with two more runs in the top of the sixth. Drew Jackson led off with his 10th home run of the year to trim the Naturals lead to one run. Later in the inning, Luke Raley singled with two outs and eventually scored on pitcher Gabe Speier's throwing error to tie the game at 4-4 and set the stage for Darvill's big hit.
Darvill had made several good defensive plays at third base earlier in the game, but he made the biggest impact with his bat. He deposited the first pitch of the eighth inning from Yunior Marte over the left field fence for his first home run as a Driller and gave Tulsa a 5-4 lead.
The <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Tulsa bullpen made sure the lead held. Andrew Istler, who was working his third inning, set the Naturals down in order in the eighth inning, and Dylan Baker did the same in the ninth to close out the win. For Baker, it was his eighth save of the season.
 
WHAT YOU MISSED
Istler allowed only one his in three shutout, relief innings. He was credited with the victory that evened his record at 2-2.
Jacob Scavuzzo did not play in the game, keeping his 15-game hitting streak alive.   
Darvill finished with two hits in four at-bats in the game. Raley led an 11-hit <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Tulsa attack with three hits.  
The Drillers got home runs from Robinson, Jackson and Darvill and have now hit a home run in 13 straight games.
WHAT'S NEXT
The Drillers and Naturals will continue their series Saturday night with the first pitch scheduled for 6:05 p.m. The pitching matchups are scheduled to be:
TUL    Dean Kremer (1-0, 0.00 ERA)
NWA Foster Griffin (3-11, 5.99 ERA)