SPRINGDALE -- The Northwest Arkansas Naturals' pitching staff bounced back on Sunday for the shutout that eluded them the night before.
Four Naturals' pitchers combined for a four-hit blanking, Northwest Arkansas cracked a scoreless tie with two runs in the bottom of the eighth, and they won the three-game series over San Antonio with a 2-0 win before a crowd of 4,235 on Sunday.
Northwest Arkansas (58-68, 29-27 second half) remained in first place in the North Division of the Texas League with the win.
Josh Staumont, Evan Beal, Tim Hill and Mark Peterson combined to yield just four singles in a brilliant performance worthy of a shutout.
"Especially, as well as we pitched last night and we don't get the shutout, which our pitchers deserved," Naturals' Manager Vance Wilson said. "We kind of had the missed ball in right field so for our pitchers to come back and do what they do was nice."
Saturday night, Yender Caramo threw eight shutout innings before San Antonio scored twice in the top of the ninth on a ball misplayed in the outfield. Northwest Arkansas still won, 5-2.
Sunday, Josh Staumont set the stage with five scoreless innings with four strikeouts.
"I felt good today," Staumont said. "I've felt good in the past, the result just hasn't been there. I only got five innings today and I've gone further in the past but at the same time I feel like I put our team in a pretty good position to win. That's all that really matters."
Staumont ran into trouble in the third inning, albeit on good pitches. Luis Tejada led off the inning with a bloop single, and Trae Santos reached on an infield dribbler.
"That's baseball," Staumont said. "We win on those, we lose on those constantly."
Staumont then started a double play on hard ball back to him, and looked Tejada back to third.
"They're first and third and to get that double play to get out of it without a run, those are the things that changes games," Staumont said. "Down 1-0 going into the eighth or ninth changes a hitter's perspective. They have to think a little bigger. We weren't thinking big. We just got those two across by just hitting."
Staumont walked a batter after the double play, but got out of the inning unscathed.
"Staumont struggled a little bit in the middle part of his outing, but to hang in there and keep them off the board and then to have a rally like that," Wilson said. "Staumont's got front-end rotation stuff."
Northwest Arkansas cracked the scoreless tie with two runs in the eighth inning.
Corey Toups started the home half of the inning with a single and moved to second when Alfredo Escalara's bunt was mishandled, putting two runners aboard.
Ryan O'Hearn singled sharply to right to score Toups, who slid across the plate head first just ahead of the throw.
"Schwindel and Ramos are coming up, they hit into double plays," Wilson said. "You're already prepared on that move. Their outfielders launch the ball, so I knew Escalara is coming to third so we'd still be first and third with one out."
Wilson was sending Toups all the way.
"I don't make the call right away because I don't want their whole infield screaming 'home, home.'" Wilson said. "Maybe the outfielder doesn't think you're going to send him so you have a little strategy that way, but it was a no-brainer."
Toups is also the Naturals' lead-off hitter with good speed.
"Having played them, their outfielders don't hit their cut-off man, they come high," Wilson said. "Our guys are prepared to take the extra base, and Toups is one of our better base runners. The matchup was there for it to be successful. It matched up the right way, and we leave a lot of guys at third base. That sways your decision as well."
Frank Schwindel lined out, but Mauricio Ramos, who grounded into his league-leading 20th double play the at-bat before in the sixth inning, flied out to deep-enough center to score Escalara for a big insurance run.
"Especially against this team," Wilson said. "They seem to come back on us it seems like the last three years since I've been here. They seem to come back and walk us off or take the lead. They come back."
Mark Peterson finished off San Antonio (51-75, 29-27) in the ninth for the save, needing 18 pitches and pitching around a broken-bat two-out single.
SHORT HOPS
• Sunday's win earned the Naturals their fifth home series victory since July 2, improving to 5-1-1 in seven home series.
• All 13 hits on Sunday combined by the two teams were singles.
• Naturals' pitchers retired 19 of the last 21 batters they faced on Sunday.
On Deck: The Naturals are idle for the third straight Monday before beginning a seven-game road trip first to Springfield for four games and then to instate rival Arkansas in North Little Rock for three games. Eric Skoglund (6-9, 3.41) earns the start for the Naturals on Tuesday and will oppose Matt Pearce (0-2, 13.50). Tuesday's start will be Skoglund's seventh against Springfield. Skoglund is only 1-3 against Springfield, but he has a 2.48 earned run average in 36-1/3 innings in the seven starts. Pearce is making just his third Double-A start and is 0-2.
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Sports on 08/22/2016