Drew Beam spent Thursday night taking the edge out of everything Arkansas had built over the last week.
The Travelers came home with a seven-game winning streak and got one loud answer from Charlie Pagliarini, but not enough of anything else against the Northwest Arkansas right-hander. Beam worked eight innings, struck out nine without a walk and held Arkansas to three hits as the Naturals beat the Travelers 4-1 at Dickey-Stephens Park.
Beam set career highs in both innings and strikeouts, and the way he got there mattered as much as the line. Arkansas never drew a walk against him. The Travelers scored only when Pagliarini drove his 25th home run of the season to right-center in the fourth, a blast that briefly tied the game and gave the ballpark the kind of jolt that had followed Arkansas through its winning streak.
It did not last.
Nico Tellache had enough swing-and-miss to keep Arkansas in it, finishing six innings with eight strikeouts and one walk for his team-leading 10th quality start of the season. But the Naturals found the two-out hits Beam never needed many of, and that was the difference between a close pitchers’ game and the end of a streak.
Northwest Arkansas broke through first in the fourth, and Arkansas still nearly turned the inning into a defensive highlight instead of a deficit. Sam Kulasingam singled, moved to third on Spencer Nivens’ groundout and came home when Daniel Vazquez lifted a sacrifice fly to right. Jared Sundstrom had to run it down near the wall and held on while crashing into it, taking away extra damage even as Kulasingam tagged for a 1-0 Naturals lead.
Pagliarini wiped that out in the bottom half. Beam got the first out of the inning before Pagliarini sent a fly ball deep to right-center, the kind that carried long enough for the game to pause with it. It left for No. 25, tying the score at 1 and accounting for Arkansas’ only run.
Beam answered by retiring Hunter Fitz-Gerald on a lineout and Connor Charping on another hard liner to left, then kept moving.
Tellache matched him until the sixth, when Luke Pelzer opened the inning with a sharp single to left. Sam Kulasingam struck out as Pelzer stole second, and Spencer Nivens grounded out to move him to third. That left Tellache one out from keeping the game tied.
Vazquez changed it. He drove a fly ball down the left-field line that dropped fair and bounced to the fence, scoring Pelzer for a 2-1 Naturals lead. Justin Johnson followed with the softer kind of damage, a line drive that fell in right-center beyond a sliding Jonny Farmelo and brought Vazquez home. Two two-out hits had turned Beam’s margin from nothing into two runs.
For Arkansas, that was a steep hill with Beam dealing. Fitz-Gerald singled in the seventh, but Beam stranded him. Sammy Siani singled in the eighth, but Beam finished that inning too, striking out Josh Hood to close his career-best night.
The Naturals added one more in the eighth, and it came with the kind of defensive leak Arkansas could not afford. Kulasingam doubled to center off Ty Cummings, then reached third when Vazquez got aboard on a fielding error by Austin St. Laurent. Johnson followed with a grounder to third that Caleb Cali fielded, but the throw sailed, allowing Kulasingam to score the unearned run that made it 4-1.
Cummings was charged with the unearned run over 1.2 innings, while Conor Larkin got the final out of the eighth and worked a scoreless ninth. Together, Arkansas pitching struck out 12, but the Travelers’ offense never forced Northwest Arkansas to play from behind.
Tellache took the loss after allowing three earned runs on six innings. Vazquez drove in two for Northwest Arkansas, and Kulasingam went 2-for-4 with a double and two runs.
Zachary Cawyer handled the ninth for his sixth save, working around a leadoff walk to Farmelo. Pagliarini flew out, Fitz-Gerald struck out and Charping lined sharply to left, leaving Arkansas with one run on three hits and two errors.
The streak stopped there, not with a collapse so much as with a starter who left the Travelers almost no room to turn one swing into a game.