Sod Poodles Lose Rain-Soaked Opener to Travelers

AMARILLO, Texas — The Sod Poodles lost the opener of a three-game series with the Arkansas Travelers after a rain delay of 2 hours and 2 minutes 7-4. Severe thunderstorms sweeping the Panhandle caused the delay in the bottom of the sixth inning with Amarillo down 6-1.  

Because they had already reached the five-inning minimum, it could have been called as an official game. Instead, umpires chose to resume play at 11:05 PM.  Down five runs with four innings left to play, the Sod Poodles could have very easily gone through the motions, returned to the clubhouse and gotten ready for tomorrow’s 1:05 p.m. game.

Instead, Amarillo put three runs on the board in the eighth after Arkansas had extended their lead to 7-1 the previous inning.

“We outhit them, but when you are that far behind you have to play base-to-base, you can’t steal or take the extra base; so it’s tough,” said Phillip Wellman, the Sod Poodles manager.

“But we kept playing and our guys didn’t waste at-bats.”

Righthander Jesse Scholtens got the start and put up zeros for the first four frames, before giving up four runs in the fourth inning and one more in the fifth before leaving the game.

Edward Olivares, Ivan Castillo, and Kyle Overstreet each had three hits, and Hudson Potts, the top-ranked position prospect on the squad who slumped mightily in April, had two hits to build on his walk-off home run Friday.

“He’s starting to figure it out, isn’t he?” smiled Wellman when asked about Potts’s progress.  “The talent is starting to show up and he’s starting to gain some confidence.

“We had a few guys that had three hits including Overstreet who was too good a hitter last year to not hit this year. Now we’ve got to get [Brad] Zunica and Buddy Reed going, and we will.”

Despite the win, the Travellers had two players and their manager ejected by the home plate umpire for arguing balls and strikes.

Sod Poodles Notes:  LHP Adrian Morejon is in Amarillo and throwing.  According to Padres’ minor league pitching coordinator Eric Junge, who is with the Sod Poodles, Morejon has not experienced any recurrence of the shoulder pain that sidelined him, but the organization has also not set a date for his return to the mound. … Miguel Diaz, who has been on the big league disabled list since early in spring training, is expected to join Amarillo for a rehab assignment beginning Sunday. The right-handed reliever was moved to the 60-day disabled list last week to make room on the 40-man roster. The organization will have 21 days to get him ready on his assignment.