Royals June 10th Minors Recap

Omaha has now won five in a row, as they swept the four-game series against Round Rock with an 8-6 victory in Sunday’s finale. Down 6-5 heading into the bottom of the 8th inning, the Storm Chasers scored three runs to take the lead they would not relinquish on one hit, two walks, two sac bunts, an error, a hit batter, and a sac fly.

After a poor start from Sean O’Sullivan (4IP, 9H, 6R, 3BB, 5), Blaine Hardy followed with four scoreless innings of relief. He allowed just two hits while striking out four to pick up the win.

Salvador Perez again caught all nine innings (he went 0-for-3 with a run scored). Chris Getz was the DH and went 0-for-5. Five Omaha players had two hits.

After taking over first place in the Texas League’s North Division on Saturday night, NW Arkansas traveled to face the team they stook first place from, Tulsa. The Drillers came back to defeat the Naturals, 4-2 and ended their seven-game winning streak.

Neither team hit early on, as pitching dominated. Naturals starter Justin Marks allowed just one run on five hits and two walks over seven innings. However the Drillers came back with three runs with two outs off Naturals reliever Patrick Keating. Two of those runs scored on Rey Navarro‘s fielding error at shortstop.

The Naturals had just four hits, with Ryan Jenkins delivering the two out, two-run double in the 7th inning. Three of their four hits came in that inning.

The Wilmington Blue Rocks were swept at Winston-Salem, as they lost Sunday’s finale 2-0. The Blue Rocks collected just three hits. The loss pushed the Blue Rocks to five games back of Lynchburg in the Carolina League’s Northern Division with seven games to go in the first half. They have lost five in a row.

The Blue Rocks struck out eight times, back-to-back to end the game. Brett Eibner picked up two more strikeouts, to raise his total to 70 on the season (fourth most in the CL).

Sugar Ray Marimon took the loss. He allowed two runs on seven hits and four walks over six innings. Brooks Pounders made his Blue Rocks debut with one scoreless inning of relief.

Kane County went 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position en route to their 4-1 loss to Peoria. Four of the Cougars’ seven hits came from Daniel Mateo and Michael Antonio.

Andrew Ferguson made his first start of the 2012 season for the Cougars (he was an 18th round draft pick of the KC Royals in last June’s draft out of Arkansas State University). He allowed one run on two hits and four walks over four innings. He struck out four.