The RoughRiders did not leave much room for suspense on a night built for it.
With a Texas League South first-half title sitting one win away, Frisco put Arkansas under pressure immediately Thursday at Riders Field, scored six times before the Travelers could answer and kept rolling until a 13-4 win had turned the clinch into something closer to a procession.
Frisco finished with 13 runs, 15 hits and no errors, scored in six of its eight offensive innings and got a hit from every starter. The lineup did not have to wait for one swing to break the night open. It kept passing the inning along until Arkansas starter Nico Tellache had been dragged through three scoring innings and charged with seven earned runs over 4.2 innings.
Rafe Perich started the scoring in the first, grounding into a force play that brought home Frainyer Chavez after Chavez and Arturo Disla opened the inning with singles. That gave Frisco the first lead in a game with a playoff spot attached to it, and the RoughRiders spent the next inning making it much bigger.
Julian Brock and Keith Jones II walked to start the second, Marcus Lee Sang lined a single to right to score Brock, and Disla added a sacrifice fly. Perich followed with an RBI single, and Dylan Dreiling provided the inning’s loudest contact, driving a two-run double to right that sent Chavez and Perich home and pushed the lead to 6-0.
By then, Frisco had taken the game out of the tight, clinch-night category and moved it into something more comfortable. The RoughRiders did not need to be perfect after that. They only needed to keep the game from getting loose.
Winston Santos gave them enough to do it. He struck out seven over four innings and was charged with three earned runs, the biggest blemish coming when Hunter Fitz-Gerald lifted his 14th home run of the season to center in the fourth. Fitz-Gerald finished 2-for-5 with an RBI and two runs, the clearest reminder that Arkansas still had some thump.
Before the game, Rangers farm director Josh Bonifay had pointed to Santos’ stuff and strike-throwing as part of his recent growth.
“He’s attacking hitters. I mean, he’s been bit by the home run bug, but I don’t think the—you know, that’s, that’s sustainable here.”
— Josh Bonifay, Rangers Farm Director
Arkansas made its push in the fifth, loading the bases with nobody out against Santos. Bill Knight walked to force in a run, cutting Frisco’s lead to 7-2, and the RoughRiders went to Joey Danielson with the tying run on deck.
Danielson gave Frisco the kind of relief outing that does not show up as loudly as the 15 hits, but mattered plenty. Michael Arroyo grounded into a Chavez-to-Corey Joyce-to-Disla double play, scoring one run but clearing two outs from the inning. Danielson then struck out Charlie Pagliarini to end it, and the Travelers had turned a bases-loaded, no-out chance into only two runs.
Danielson went on to earn the win with two scoreless innings, one strikeout and no walks.
That escape gave the offense room to bury the game. Frisco added four more in the sixth against Ty Cummings. Joyce doubled, Disla singled, Perich drove in Joyce with a soft ground-ball single to right, Malcolm Moore added a sacrifice fly, and Brock lined a two-run double down the right-field side to make it 11-3.
Brock finished 2-for-4 with a double, a walk and three RBIs. Perich went 2-for-5 with three RBIs and two runs. Chavez went 2-for-4 with a double, a walk and an RBI, while Lee Sang and Joyce each had two hits. Lee Sang doubled, drove in a run and scored twice; Joyce doubled and scored twice.
The last two Frisco runs served mostly as a roll call for how complete the night had become. Lee Sang doubled in the seventh and scored on Chavez’s groundout. In the eighth, Moore shot a ball down the right-field line, kept running as it got away in the corner and reached third for his first Double-A triple. Brock followed with a sharp single to right, bringing Moore home for the final margin.
Moore tripled, drove in a run and scored. It also meant every RoughRiders starter had joined the hit column before the night was done.
Bonifay, speaking before the clinch was official, described the minor league balance between development and winning as something the organization wants players to feel rather than avoid.
“Well, I mean, you, you’re so focused on the development, the individual skills, and the process of each, each player, that when you put the team together, you’re hopeful that they gel.”
— Josh Bonifay, Rangers Farm Director
On Thursday, the pieces looked plenty connected. Frisco got an early lead, protected it when Arkansas threatened, and kept adding on until the Texas League South first-half race no longer had anything left to ask.