The outcome of Saturday night's matchup between the Northwest Arkansas Naturals and the Arkansas Travelers was pretty much a done deal before the first of six used cars was given away at Dickey-Stephens Park on Clunker Car Night.
Northwest Arkansas scored five runs on five hits before Arkansas starter Tyler Herb retired a batter in a 21-minute top of the first inning, and it was enough to propel them to a 7-3 victory over the Travelers in front of 3,897 in North Little Rock.
The victory was Northwest Arkansas' fourth in the first six games of a seven-game series that concludes this afternoon at 2:10 p.m.
The victory kept Northwest Arkansas within four games of Wichita in the Class AA-Central North.
The Travelers fell five games behind the Wind Surge, who scored two runs in the bottom of the ninth to beat Midland 5-4 on Saturday night.
Herb (2-5) took the loss, but he gave up 1 run and 5 hits over his final 4 2/3 innings to keep his team within striking distance and keep Manager Collin Cowgill from having to dip into his bullpen long before he planned.
Cowgill said he would have had to pull Herb if he had gone over the organization's 35-pitch cap to an inning, and he was glad he didn't.
"So, he just snuck by in the first, but he settled in and gave us a quality start," Cowgill said.
Herb retired the final eight batters he faced, but the first inning was a slog.
The game started with a single by Clay Dungan and a steal of second.
Dungan scored on Brewer Hicklen's double to left, and Hicklen scored on Vinnie Pasquantino's RBI ground-rule double that bounced into the Travs bullpen.
Pasquantino advanced to third on catcher Freddy Fermin's single to right, and Fermin advanced to second on a wild pitch by Herb.
Kevin Merrell's single to center scored two more runs, and it was 4-0 without an out being recorded.
Merrell, who advanced to second on Jack Larsen's throw to the plate, stopped at third when Jimmy Govern grounded to short and reached on Patrick Frick's error.
Third baseman Dennicher Carrasco picked up an RBI while making the first out on a grounder to Frick.
Herb was 28 pitches in at that point.
"I was just hoping he could get one," Cowgill said of Herb at that point. "He settled in, and it was huge for us."
The teams combined for six runs -- five by Northwest Arkansas -- in the first inning Saturday, eclipsing the five unearned runs in Northwest Arkansas' 3-2 10-inning victory Friday.
Arkansas countered with a lead-off home run by Jack Larsen in the bottom of the first to make it 5-1, but the Naturals went up 6-1 in the top of the third on Tyler Cropley's second home run of the season, a drive that stayed inside the left-field foul pole.
Herb hasn't been as sharp since returning from a four-week stay on the injured list July 11.
Herb was 2-2 with a 2.01 ERA before leaving his June 20 start against Tulsa after recording one out..
He yielded 1 earned run in his four-inning comeback start July 11, but has given up 18 earned runs in 23 1/3 innings over his past four starts, an ERA of 7.25.
Herb's ERA has gone from 2.04 to 4.06.
"Tonight, he was erratic," Cowgill said. "But I don't think he's been poor one time all year. Tonight, they just found the barrel.
"He got in some disadvantaged counts early, and they took advantage of it.
"They got big hits with guys in scoring position. That's how it goes when you're not in the zone as much."
Cowgill said Zach DeLoach's two-run triple in the bottom of the ninth is something for the offense to build on.
"He can really hit, and that's a good sign, especially on a slider," Cowgill said.
There was also a 392-foot fly ball to left center by Josh Morgan that was caught on the warning track by Hicklen that would have been a home run in most other professional ballparks.
"We don't reward guys for hitting home runs, or for batting average or RBIs; we reward them for hitting the ball hard," Cowgill said. "For him that's a quality at bat. For us it's a quality at bat. It stinks that it didn't go out of the park. You can't do anything other than what he did. He squared it up. The guy made a nice play."