Nats back to normal, blank Travs

LITTLE ROCK — For the Northwest Arkansas Naturals, Tuesday night was all about getting back to normal.

That meant beating the Arkansas Travelers 5-0 before an announced crowd of 3,744 at Dickey-Stephens Park in North Little Rock. Decisive victories over their in-state rivals have been the norm for the Naturals, though nothing was normal about what Northwest Arkansas dealt with the previous night.

The Naturals climbed back from an early 4-0 deficit Monday, only to lose in the bottom of the ninth inning after a meltdown by the relief corps. So a dominant outing Tuesday proved to be good therapy.

Northwest Arkansas righthander Alex Caldera held the Arkansas lineup to three hits over seven innings, striking out three. Henry Barrera pitched the last two innings, striking out two and holding the Travelers hitless.

“Our offense has been our big cog,” Naturals Manager Brian Poldberg said. “We’ve had to score a lot of runs to win. I keep waiting for a spell, because you’re not going to hit all year. Tonight was a night where the pitching did it, and it was kind of nice to see that for a change.”

The Naturals had little trouble with Arkansas starter Ryan Brasier, who gave up 9 hits and 5 earned runs over 6 2 /3 innings. Though recently moved to the bullpen, Brasier was moved back into the starting rotation after righthander Tim Kiely was transferred to Class AAA Salt Lake on Sunday.

Northwest Arkansas scored two runs off Brasier in the third inning, with Ben Theriot leading off with a single and later scoring on a fielder’s choice ground ball from Jarrod Dyson. Later in the inning, Clint Robinson hit a sharp single to right field to score Chris McConnell and give the Naturals a 2-0 lead.

Northwest Arkansas then took a 3-0 lead in the fourthafter Tim Smith lead off the inning with a first pitch home run.

The rest was left up to Caldera.

“He had our number,” Travelers Manager Bobby Magallanes said. “He’s doing something right. He was adding and subtracting on his pitches, and we really couldn’t do anything with him. His slider was a pitch we weren’t getting good hits off of. We probably weren’t even getting good rotation off of it. That’s what he was going to, and he was popping that fastball in.”