Missed Opportunities Cost Naturals
Last updated Friday, July 4, 2008 11:04 PM CDT in Sports
By Alex Abrams
The Morning News
SPRINGDALE - Northwest Arkansas seemingly had everything going for it on the Fourth of July, including a new designated hitter and a record crowd in Arvest Ballpark.
But aside from the fireworks show that lit up the stadium, Friday proved to be filled with plenty of missed opportunities for the Naturals.
San Antonio pulled out a pair of unlikely victories, winning 6-5 on a wild throw to third base by Northwest Arkansas catcher Cody Clark in the 12th inning of a game completed from Thursday night.
The Missions then turned around and got all the offense they needed in the fourth inning of the second game to erase a three-run deficit and claim a 4-3 victory in front of crowd of 7,884 on Friday night.
"It always hurts. The first game we had two two-out doubles after the ninth inning, ... (but) we didn't get it done," Naturals manager Brian Poldberg said.
"And (we) get off to a 3-0 start in the second game, and then all of sudden, one big inning and that ended up being the game."
The Naturals came in riding a three-game winning streak, but they head into the weekend on a two-game losing streak after failing to capitalize on several opportunities Friday night.
San Antonio took advantage of an offensive onslaught in the top of the fourth inning, getting four doubles from its first six batters to score four runs.
Left fielder Craig Cooper started the rally with a double to the right-field wall, and Kyle Blanks followed it up with a double to left field that scored two runs.
After a sacrifice bunt moved Blanks to third, Sean Kazmar and Jose Lobaton strung together back-to-back doubles off Naturals pitcher Rowdy Hardy (3-8) to add two more runs.
"Rowdy left a couple of balls up, and when he did, they took advantage of it," Poldberg said. "A couple of key doubles for them and hit batter, and all that kind of started it off that inning."
After that, San Antonio didn't need to do anything else but get a strong performance from its bullpen to shut down Northwest Arkansas to earn the win.
The Kansas City Royals signed outfielder Cory Aldridge and sent him to the Naturals with the hope that he'd bring more offensive power to the lineup. But Aldridge struggled in his debut, and the Naturals couldn't muster any scoring after the third inning.
Shortstop Mario Lisson gave Northwest Arkansas a 1-0 lead with two outs in the bottom of the first inning when he smacked a Manny Ayala (4-1) pitch over the left-field wall.
Not to be outdone, Northwest Arkansas first baseman Kila Kaaihue - who bats behind Lisson in the lineup - drilled a two-run home run in the bottom of the third to extend the lead to 3-0. It was his 19th homer of the season.
But Northwest Arkansas got nothing after that.
"Our pitching in the second game was outstanding, especially our bullpen. Outstanding job by our bullpen," San Antonio manager Bill Masse said.
"Outstanding job in the first game to not let (the Naturals) score obviously. I mean, both teams had chances there in that first game."
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