The Arkansas Travelers went down in order seven times Wednesday afternoon.
The one time they didn’t they got enough out of three singles to beat the Tulsa Drillers and touted starter Jon Gray 1-0 in front of a season-high crowd of 7,132 at Dickey-Stephens Park in North Little Rock.
Andy Workman’s single with two outs in the sixth broke up Gray’s perfect game. Then Workman stole second base and scored on Kyle Hudson’s dribbler up the middle for the game’s lone run as Kramer Sneed, Carmen Giardina and David Carpenter combined for a three-hit shutout despite the Travs’ ongoing offensive problems.
It came a day after Manager Phillip Wellman left disappointed with how the Travs left the few runners they had on base while being swept by the Drillers in a doubleheader in which they were 5 for 58 over 18 innings.
“You’ve got to take advantage of your opportunities, and we really didn’t get very many,” Wellman said. “Three hits and you win a ballgame, you’ve got to be pretty happy.”
Gray, a first-round draft pick of the Colorado Rockies last year ranked by Baseball America as the No. 12 overall prospect in baseball, was the main reason the Travs had so few chances Wednesday.
Using a fastball that reached the mid-90s, Gray struck out the first four batters and retired the first 17 until Workman’s single up the middle in the sixth. After Workman’s first stolen base of the season, Hudson hit a 2-1 pitch into center field to break the Travs’ string of 23 2/3 scoreless innings.
Like most of his teammates, Hudson went to the plate Wednesday mired in a slump. He was 0 for 8 in Tuesday’s doubleheader, and after being struck out by Gray in the first and fourth innings he was hitless in his past 14 at-bats.
“As much as we don’t want to see a guy like that, it’s good that we can get a guy like that on the mound and get a win out of it,” Hudson said. “That’s going to be a confidence builder for us.”
Despite Hudson’s struggles, Wellman said he has seen quality at-bats from the Travs’ center fielder. He saw it again in the sixth when his team needed it most.
“You could see the focus and the concentration,” Wellman said. “That’s why he’s a good lead off guy. He’s a veteran guy, he’s been around. He knows what he’s doing.”
Despite the hitting slump - the Travs are hitting .095 in the first three games of the series - Arkansas has shown its pitching can keep it in most games.
As Gray was shutting down the Travs, Sneed was matching him inning for inning. The 25-year-old left-hander in his first season with the Travs pitched around a lead off walk in the first, a lead off double in the third and a lead off single in the fourth. He held Tulsa to 3 hits, walked 2 and struck out 3 over 7 innings before turning it over to the bullpen.
Giardina pitched a perfect eighth and Carpenter pitched around a lead off walk with the help of left fielder Zach Borenstein, who went crashing into the wall to snag David Garneau’s fly ball for the first out in the ninth on a play that Sneed called “the play of the day.”
Sneed (2-2) said matching up against a touted prospect like Gray, who was given a $4.8 million signing bonus from the Rockies, was motivation.
“You’ve got to beat the best to be the best,” Sneed said. “For me, when I put up those few zeroes early, got some help from my defense, that gave me some confidence to know that I can pitch.”
Today’s game ARKANSAS VS. TULSA WHEN 7:10 p.m.
WHERE Dickey-Stephens Park, North Little Rock RADIO KARN-AM, 920, in central Arkansas WEBSITE travs.com
PITCHERS Travelers: RHP Yeiper Castillo (1-1, 6.28 ERA); Drillers: Richard Castillo (1-0, 3.18) TICKETS Gates open 1 hour before the game. $12 box seats, $8 reserved ($5 children), $6 general admission ($4 children).
THE WEEK AHEAD
TODAY Tulsa 7:10 p.m.
FRIDAY Springfield, 7:10 p.m.
SATURDAY Springfield, 6:10 p.m.
SUNDAY Springfield, 2:10 p.m.
MONDAY Springfield, 7:10 p.m.
TUESDAY at Tulsa, 7:05 p.m.
WEDNESDAY at Tulsa, 11:05 a.m.
Sports, Pages 17 on 04/24/2014