Between the missus’ birthday weekend, a Monday morning focused largely on tweaking the snazzy up-to-date website, and the Arkansas Travelers having a infrequent Monday game this week, we are quickly running out of time to do a recap post this week. It’s been a busy enough day, a lesser minor league correspondent might have skipped the post altogether!
Not this guy, though. Not when your Travelers had such a good week on the baseball fields of southwest Missouri that one of their own was named Texas League Player of the Week.
Enough dawdling, people! Let’s get to it.
Series recap:
In the interest of time, this week’s recap is going to lean heavily on my notes from the games this week, rather than using them to write (arguably) more coherent paragraphs about each game. To the extent some of this is unhinged, I apologize or you’re welcome, whichever floats your boat.
Tuesday (6/25): T1 (Top of the first). Walks to Blake Rambusch, Harry Ford, and Hogan Windish. Sacks juiced for Alberto Rodriguez. A pessimist would say the Travs will screw this up. A pessimist would be right. Berto flies out to end the inning. B1 (Bottom of the first). Cards’ Matt Lloyd drives a Juan Mercedes pitch out of Hammons Field for a 1-0 lead, despite Springfield being last in the league in long balls. T2. Ben Ramirez single, before Kaden Polcovich reminds us what people always say about warning-track power. (Nothing.) T3. Rambusch strikes out on 100 mph heat. Cole Young doubles, Ford hit by a pitch. Six base runners already. (Please score. Please god, score.) Double steal! 100 steals on the season for the Travs. Ben Williamson beaned. Ducks on the pond. Can they come through. OMG! HOGAN WINDISH GRANNY PANTIES! 4-1 Travs. T4. Polcovich walks. Pitching change. Polco caught stealing. TOOTBLAN! B4. Polco with a leaping catch because he frequently takes terrible routes to fly balls and makes up for it with athletic ability. (Next batter hits one over his head as I was writing the last sentence.) T5. Hoagie launches another! 2-run bomb, 418 feet the other way. 6-1 Travs. T7. Ho-gain! Windish launches his third homer. 8-2 Travs. T9. What the hell is happening?! Windish’s FOURTH tater! Travelers 9, Cardinals 4.
Wednesday: Cooper Hjerpe starts for Springfield. How is that pronounced? /googles /blinks No way. No damned way. JURP-ee?! No hits allowed through 6. T9. Windish a double, but Williamson thrown out at home. Hjerps. Ooh, first hit and first RBI for newly promoted Traveler Victor Labrada! Cardinals 4, Travelers 1.
Thursday: T2. New Traveler Brock Rodden walks, Ben Ramirez doubles. 1-0. Morgan McCullough triples. 2-0. T3. Windish RBI double. Dude is hitting beach balls with a boat paddle out there. 3-0. B3. Damn it. 3-2 Travs. B5. Cole Young suddenly lifted. No one knows why. Am I fixing to be sorrowful (injury) or apoplectic (trade)? It’ll be fun to find out together! (Editor’s note: apparently, it was nothing, as Young was back in the lineup Friday.) B6. Danny Wirchansky retires 10th in a row. B7. Here comes Logan Evans. Radio voice of the Travs Steven Davis suggests this back-to-back appearance is at the direction of the Mariners as preparation for promotion. Being a minor league fan is like being a mama bird, just waiting for them to fly away. Evans gets 4-6-3, because he’s my very specialist baby bird. B8. Labrada is speedy as fudge boyyyyy. Makes a catch in right center that no Travs player since Julio Rodriguez gets to. Travelers 7, Cards 2.
Friday: A week behind schedule, but still welcome, Travs go into the weekend part of the series with early offense. Two runs in T1 and would have been worse if not for a double play. 2-0. B1. Lars Nootbar on an MLB rehab assignment? lol. Get wrecked. Flies out to right. T2. Labrada double, Rodden single. McCullough double play drives in a run. 3-0. (LabRodden when they’re back to back in the lineup and playing well? Stop doing this to people, Matt.) B2. Chandler Redmond finds the one way he can still contribute, getting plunked with bases loaded. 3-1. B3. Nootbar? The K must be still, as he strikes out. T4. Labrada TOOTBLAN at second after a walk. Dammit. He’s so speedy thoooooouuuugh-uh! B5. Nootbar? More like Not Far. Flies out to left. Jimmy Joyce goes 4.2 innings, longest of the season. Pitching change, Torres out trying a straight steal of home. lol. Now he’s jawing at the pitcher because he’s ashamed of his own indigent base running. B6. Cards score. No one cares. 8-3. Pitching change. Another run. How? See earlier thing about caring. 9-4. B8. Travis Kuhn enters the game, much to my breath-holding fear, but sets Springfield down in order. Travelers 11, Cardinals 6.
Saturday: T1. Williamson single, Young beaned, Ford 2-RBI double. 2-0. Windish’s double scores Ford. 3-0. Jake Anchia doubles! 5-0. Cards make pitching change. B1. Reid VanScoter whiffs Nootbar. B3. Nootbar singles to deep center, but runners hold to see if Labrada can get there, then 8-6-2 put out nails the runner at home after perfect throw from Young. TOOTBLAN! HAVE SOME! (Seriously though, that’s an underrated aspect of Labrada’s speed that doesn’t show in the box score. If that’s Polcovich in center, the Cardinals are running and they score there. They had to respect Labrada’s wheels though.) B6. Nootbar homers. Flukebar. 5-1. T8. Back to back jacks from Rodden and Anchia. Travelers 7, Cardinals 2.
Sunday: Look, you aren’t going to win every night, no matter how sizzling the bats are. This was ugly. Cardinals 8, Travelers 2.
A word about awards:
Following his four-homer game on Tuesday, there was a good chance Hogan Windish would win Texas League Player of the week. Today, the Texas League made it official.
For the week, Windish slashed .308/.357/.885 with four homers, 11 RBIs, three doubles, two walks, and a stolen base. That’s good baseballin’.
Travelers’ current record:
40-34 overall, 4-2 in the second half. Currently tied for the second-half division lead in the Texas League North with Northwest Arkansas and Tulsa.
Three things to be hopeful about:
- Hitting. For the first time in what feels like months, the Travelers are running out there each night with quality bats up and down the lineup. Windish’s four homers and sizzling week got all the publicity, and rightly so, but Ben Ramirez put up a 1.000 OPS last week, Ben Williamson hit .333 across six games, and up-to-date Travs Victor Labrada and Brock Rodden started to heat up as the series went along. Even Jake Anchia added a homer and hit .500 for the week in three games. With the pitching the Travs have every night, consistent offense will turn into a lot of 4-2 or 5-1 series wins in the second half.
- Speed. Cole Young and Harry Ford have combined for 34 steals this season. Windish has added 11. Victor Labrada and Brock Rodden are among the fastest players on the team and swiped three bags between them last week. Blake Rambusch can run. The speed translates beyond stolen bases, too. This is a team that can score from second easily and can run down balls in the outfield and foul territory with ease, too.
- Schedule. The Travs don’t face Springfield again this year. While they won the season series, playing Springfield (especially at Dickey-Stephens) is never fun. So unless Arkansas makes the playoffs, they won’t be seeing Springfield again until 2025.
Current area(s) of concern:
None? Like…sure, there are plenty of things that could be cleaned up or tweaked, but for the first time since mid-April, there’s not a glaring hole in the team that feels like it will cost them multiple games per week. That’s a good feeling, and I’m not going to minimize it by listing ticky-tack things that aren’t super concerning right now.
Arkansas Times Player of the Week:
Hogan Windish. You win Texas League Player of the Week, you also win the Times’ Player of the Week. That’s just how it works.
Up next:
The Travelers are home for a three-game series against the Frisco RoughRiders starting tonight (Monday) instead of the usual Tuesday-Sunday series. They then head to Frisco for three games, Thursday-Saturday. There is no Sunday game.
Because of a scheduling quirk, Arkansas only has eight home games in July, and they’ll be gone for 15 days following Wednesday night’s game. So get out there early this week if you hope to see some of the guys who might be called up sooner rather than later.
All games are available in Central Arkansas on 106.7 Buz2 FM.
