Northwest Arkansas Heads to Texas League Finals

Clint Robinson went 4-5 with three doubles and drove in four runs to lead the Naturals to an 8-4 win over the Springfield Cardinals in Game 5 of the North Division series.  The win completes a comeback for the Royals Double A affiliate, where they had trailed 2-1 in the best of five series.

Mike Montgomery got the win in the clinching game.

While Robinson was the star of the last game, Eric Hosmer was the star of the series, hitting five homeruns in the first four games. Hosmer and Robinson combined for 16 RBIs in the series.

Hosmer has shown a big spike in power since being promoted to the Texas League in July, which isn’t surprising, as Arvest Ballpark is power-friendly, and the Texas League in general is known for good hitting numbers. That doesn’t take away anything that Hosmer’s done – after being trapped in the spacious Frawley Stadium with the Wilmington Blue Rocks, it’s kind of like a correction of his low power numbers there in the first half of the year.

The Naturals take on the Midland Rockhounds, Double A affiliate for Oakland, in a rematch of last year’s Texas League Finals, where Midland beat Northwest Arkansas three games to one.

The Naturals send Danny Duffy to the hill to face Graham Godfrey. Godfrey had started the year in the Pacific Coast League in Triple A with Sacramento, but was demoted in August to Double A. The righty faced the Naturals on August 22 and held them scoreless in five innings pitched. He has a 3.86 ERA in 18.2 Double A innings.

Game one is tonight at 7pm Central time. You can listen to it on 92.1 The Ticket HERE.

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