Tulsa trip weird one for Travs The Arkansas Travelers’ doubleheader with the Tulsa Drillers took a turn for the weird Thursday.
It began with the Drillers’ double-headed promotion: Thirsty Thursday, with discount beer, and Halloween Night, with a costume contest. Assorted mishaps and oddities over the course of the evening added to the atmosphere.
The Travelers lost an outfielder to injury for the third time this season when center fielder Cody Fuller collided with left fielder Cliff Remole thanks to poor communication during the first game.
Fuller suffered a fractured right knee and had to be helped off. He will join Aaron Peel, who broke his clavicle in a home plate collision at Midland, and Chris Pettit, who broke his right foot during the season opener, on the disabled list.
After winning the first game 7-0, Tulsa committed five errors in the first two innings of the second as Arkansas went on to win 9-3. New Travs outfielder Drew Toussaint, promoted after Coby Smith was called up to Class AAA, homered off Drillers Stadium’s 30-foot high batter’s eye in center field, 390 feet away, with no help from the wind.
But that wasn’t the extent of the action. Drunks heckling the Travs in the vicinity of Arkansas broadcaster Phil Elson’s suspended microphone had their thoughts go out over the airwaves while costumed customers cavorted in the stands.
“Then you got a guy arrested for running on the field in a chicken costume,” Elson said. “They stopped play for about 15-20 seconds, and I look over into the left-field stands and I see the guy in the chicken costume being cuffed by the cops.” It was also somewhat unusual that the Travs won a road game, improving their record away from Dickey-Stephens Park to 6-15.
“I called it the bizarro game,” Elson said. Like a rolling stone A familiar name surfaced at Springfield’s Hammons Field when the Arkansas Travelers were in town to play the Cardinals on Tuesday. Bobby Zimmerman — the former Travelers reliever, not the Bob Zimmerman also known as Bob Dylan — took the mound against his old team and 2 pitched 1 / 3 innings with 1 hit and 1 walk to get the 7-6 victory. “He was OK,” Travs Manager Bobby Magallanes said. “His fastball command was poor, but he pitched more with his slider and ended up getting out of some jams.” A fourth-round draft pick by the Los Angeles Angels, Zimmerman (3-0 ) was considered a prospect when he arrived with the 2006 Travelers after posting a career-high 24 saves and 82 strikeouts for Magallanes at Class A Cedar Rapids in 2004 and saving 17 games at Class A Rancho Cucamonga in 2005. “He had a plus fastball, he threw low three-quarters with a slider and a sinker,” Magallanes said. “We thought this guy was going to be a late-inning guy... but his stuff was just flat and he really couldn’t command the zone. That was his problem.” Zimmerman had only five saves for the Travs in 2006 2 had a career-low 45 / 3 innings and 26 strikeouts and was released by the Angels. He made a brief appearance with the Trenton Thunder, the New York Yankees’ Class AA Eastern League affiliate, last season, before signing with the St. Louis Cardinals and being sent to Springfield. “I don’t say it happens a lot but, yeah, you see it,” Magallanes said about facing a former player. “It’s a common thing, where you see a guy with somebody else. That’s the thing about baseball, guys get released a lot of times not because they don’t have the talent but because they’re the odd man out and they pop up somewhere else.” Help wanted The Arkansas Travelers were more than happy to welcome new outfielder Drew Toussaint from Class A Rancho Cucamonga last week, even before Toussaint launched a more than 400-foot home run to center field in the 9-3 victory over Tulsa in the second game of Thursday’s doubleheader. The Travs had just lost outfielder Coby Smith to a promotion to Class AAA Salt Lake and, in the first game, saw outfielder Cody Fuller go down with a fractured knee. “Power,” Manager Bobby Magallanes said of Toussaint. “I had Drew in [Class A ] Cedar Rapids, and he hit 20 home runs there. He’s got power, and we’re hoping he’s going to be a producer for us, and we’re looking forward to having him.” Toussaint was hitting. 272 with 2 home runs and 11 RBI at the time of his promotion from Class A.
The Angels also promoted Anderson Rosario, hitting. 028 in 17 games at Rancho Cucamonga, to Arkansas. Then the club signed former Wichita Wranglers outfielder Adam Greenberg from the independent Connecticut Bluefish and assigned him to Arkansas.
Greenberg is a former Chicago Cubs draft pick who was hit by a pitch in his one major league at-bat in 2005. Last year, Greenberg, a career. 268 hitter, was with the Texas League’s Wichita Wranglers, an affiliate of the Kansas City Royals that has since moved to Springdale, where he batted. 266 and stole 23 bases.
Super Shane Springfield center fielder Shane Robinson hit everything in sight last week. Robinson connected on 11 hits in a four-day stretch against the Arkansas Travelers and Northwest Arkansas Naturals last week, including three hits in three consecutive games. That raised his batting average to. 429 entering Friday, 31 points higher than anyone else in the Texas League. Robinson’s name is plastered all over the league’s leaderboards. He is second in on-base percentage and slugging percentage and is in the top 10 in doubles, triples, stolen bases and total bases.
Not bad for a guy who had never played in Class AA before this season.
“He’s playing well,” Springfield Manager Pop Warner said. “He’s one of those guys that needs to play the game that he needs to play [in order ] to get to the big leagues, and that’s hitting the ball all over the field, keeping the ball on the ground, hitting line drives.
“ He’s starting to understand what kind of player he can be.” Robinson, 5-9, 160 pounds, was a fifth-round pick of the St. Louis Cardinals in 2006 after playing at Florida State. In 2005, he hit. 427 and stole 49 bases for the Seminoles.
In his previous two minorleague seasons, Robinson batted. 268. No weather worries It rained nearly all of Wednesday in Springdale. But when it looked like there would be a two-hour window, the Northwest Arkansas Naturals and Springfield Cardinals were told to take the field at Arvest Ballpark and try to play long enough to get an official game in the books.
The window lasted almost exactly as long as predicted, and the game was halted after 2 hours, 8 minutes due to a downpour. By that point, the Cardinals were ahead 8-1 midway through the seventh inning.
Neither manager said he expected the game to last the full nine innings, but preferred they try to squeeze in the game rather than be forced to play a doubleheader later.
“That’s not my call,” Springfield Manager Pop Warner said. “As long as they try to get five, six, seven innings in, I’ve got no problem with that. I can’t really wait around to see if it does or doesn’t rain.” The Cardinals’ rainshortened victory snapped the Naturals’ eight-game home winning streak, but Naturals Manager Brian Poldberg refused to fault his team’s nine lost outs for the defeat.
“We had every opportunity to [win ],” said Poldberg, whose team bounced back with a 6-2 victory over Springfield on Thursday night. “Weather’s definitely not to blame.” QUOTABLE “At this level, why waste what I call bullets ?” Northwest Arkansas Naturals Manager Brian Poldberg, on why he observes pitch counts BY THE NUMBERS 3 Outfielders the Arkansas Travelers have lost to injuries this season 7 Texas League players who have appeared in every game this season 7-6 The Arkansas Travelers’ record at Dickey-Stephens Park 6-15 The Travelers’ road record entering Friday 8 Steals by Northwest Arkansas third baseman Mario Lisson, the most of any player in the Texas League without being caught 10 Saves by Frisco’s Walter Madrigal, more than every other Texas League team except Arkansas 92 At-bats required by Northwest Arkansas first baseman Kila Kaaihue to reach 10 home runs
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