Twelve walks can swallow a lot of good baseball. They swallowed Luke Pelzer’s perfect night, a resilient comeback and a 10-hit effort by Northwest Arkansas on Tuesday at Arvest Ballpark.
The Naturals outhit Tulsa 10-6, but their pitchers matched a season high in walks and issued four with the bases loaded, tying a team record. The result was a 7-5 loss built almost entirely around two innings: four Drillers runs in the first and three more in the sixth.
Shane Panzini recorded only one out in the opening inning, walking four and allowing four earned runs. With the bases loaded, his miss above the zone glanced off Hyungchan Um’s glove and allowed Taylor Young to score on Jake Gelof’s walk.
Even amid the command trouble, Northwest Arkansas produced one of its best defensive plays of the night. Justin Johnson ranged behind second base and knocked down Kole Myers’ sharp grounder, then recovered in time to throw home, where Um tagged Mike Sirota. The play secured the first out, but Tulsa had already scored once.
Augusto Mendieta entered with the bases loaded and walked Logan Wagner to force home another run. Frank Rodriguez’s sacrifice fly completed the four-run inning before Mendieta stopped the game from getting away. He delivered 4⅓ scoreless innings, allowing the Naturals time to work their way back.
That response kept beginning with Pelzer. He singled in the first, advanced on a groundout and scored when Spencer Nivens dropped a line drive into center. Pelzer doubled with two outs in the third and came home on Sam Kulasingam’s liner into center, cutting the deficit to 4-2.
Kulasingam entered the series fresh from a record-setting performance Sunday. Before Tuesday’s game, he described the uncomplicated pleasure of a day when hard contact kept finding grass.
“I mean, it was fun. Just one of those days where, you know, you hit the ball hard and it drops.”
— Sam Kulasingam, Naturals Third Baseman
Northwest Arkansas moved within a run in the fourth. Connor Scott drove a ball toward the right-center-field wall, where it landed beyond Myers’ reach and kicked off the wall. Scott raced around second and slid feet-first into third with a triple, then scored on Canyon Brown’s sacrifice fly.
The Naturals loaded the bases later in the inning but came away empty. That became part of the larger frustration: they left 12 runners aboard and finished 3-for-13 with runners in scoring position.
Tulsa’s decisive answer came in the sixth, again through missing the strike zone. Caden Monke allowed a leadoff double to Rodriguez before striking out the next two hitters, but a walk and a hit batter filled the bases. Gelof drew another run-scoring walk.
Zachary Cawyer entered for his 50th appearance of the season, setting a Naturals single-season record, and Myers greeted him with a grounder that struck Cawyer’s glove and caromed toward shortstop Daniel Vazquez. By the time Vazquez reached it, there was no play as another run scored. Hainline followed with the inning’s second bases-loaded walk, stretching Tulsa’s lead to 7-3.
Pelzer doubled again in the bottom half, and Nivens’ groundout brought home Um. That gave Nivens two RBIs and completed Pelzer’s 4-for-4 night with two doubles, a walk and two runs scored. He reached in all five plate appearances.
The Naturals made one final push in the ninth. Vazquez lined a double into center and scored when Johnson bounced an RBI single through the left side, but the next three batters were retired.
The loss did not erase the lineup’s ability to keep building chances, something Kulasingam said comes from collective persistence.
“And, you know, Um, when you just stack those up over the course of nine innings, right, um, it’s, it’s fun to be a part of.”
— Sam Kulasingam, Naturals Third Baseman
Northwest Arkansas stacked up 10 hits Tuesday. Twelve walks from the mound proved heavier.