Naturals and Lamb dominate Travelers

Springdale, AR – John Lamb and the Naturals simply dominated the states rival Travelers in the opening night of the last regular season home-stand of the season. Tuesday night’s pounding by the Northwest Arkansas Naturals over the Arkansas Travelers, Texas League affiliate of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, was the result of good pitching, defense and productive at-bats.

Photo credit - Colleen Lamb

John Lamb (2-1, 5.72, 10-7, 2.33) tossed 9 1/3 innings of no-hit baseball across two starts. In rough fourth inning, Lamb loaded the bases by allowing consecutive singles to Andrew Romine and Abel Nieves followed with his only walk issued to Jeremy Moore. Charlton Jimerson promptly answered with a three-run double into the left field corner which cut the lead to 7-3. The fourth inning proved to be the only scoring effort by the Travelers.

Photo credit - Colleen Lamb

Despite the high pitch count fourth inning Lamb was allowed to finish his work through the fifth and qualify for his second win in as many Texas League starts. The one of many Naturals’ southpaws allowed 3 runs (all earned), 3 hits, 1 walk while recording 5 strike-outs before leaving the game after his 77 pitch evening. Brandon Sisk and Henry Barrera finished up with four innings of scoreless relief with very solid efforts of their own.

The Naturals defense was flawless during the game across the entire board without having an error. Solid defense always helps a team win championships. I know the entire Naturals staff has that exact goal in mind as the regular season draws toward an end.  

The Naturals offensive star for the game would have to belong to the very steady Clint Robinson. Robinson’s three RBI night gave him 92 on the season, eclipsing Corey Smith and his 90 RBI from last season with the Naturals’ single-season franchise RBI mark. With 27 homers, he is already possesses both the Naturals’ single-season and franchise home run marks and is now just six RBI from tying Brian McFall for the Naturals’ franchise career leader in that category. Robinson now leads the league in batting with a .328 average and would win the league’s Triple Crown if the season ended Tuesday night.

Two separate phone calls from Lamb last night indicated a continued optimism about his recent professional baseball performances during one and the other was filled with great news about some baseball business off the field. While Lamb embarks on the longest season of his young career we continue to cherish the 2010 path and look forward to his next start in Arvest Ballpark, hopefully this coming Sunday.

The Naturals will continue their home-stand tonight with game two of the four game series against the Travelers at 7:00 CT.

The Northwest Arkansas Naturals are the Double-A Texas League affiliate of the Kansas City Royals and play at the beautiful Arvest Ballpark, in Springdale, AR. The Naturals have a toll-free ticket hotline (1-877-444-2637) for fans to buy Naturals tickets. The website for the Naturals offers fans the opportunity to purchase tickets online and avoid lines at the ticket windows by printing their tickets at home or at the office.

Naturals website