The Tulsa Drillers had their season end, and the Oklahoma City Comets took a ten-run punch, got up, and punched back.
Triple-A Oklahoma City
The Oklahoma City Comets were breezing through this game against the Tacoma Rainiers (Mariners), leading 8-0 after five innings, and then the monsoon came, and when it Rainiers it pouriers.
Andrew Heaney started this game, his third start after tossing a pair of scoreless three-inning starts, he only went two innings this time, without giving up a run. Ronan Kopp
followed with two perfect innings, striking out four, and Roki Sasaki followed with one inning, striking out two, and giving up just a walk. Sasaki’s fastball was 98-100 mph, and he threw 16 pitches, 11 for strikes.
The Comets scored a run in the first when Esteury Ruiz led off with a double and scored on a passed ball. In the second, they broke out for seven runs. Ruiz was in the middle of this rally as well, with an RBI single, Alex Freeland hit a run-scoring single, and Ryan Ward homered.
Brock Stewart came on to pitch the sixth, and things started well as he struck out the first batter on three pitches. But then Stewart gave a lesson on the different ways to get on base, surrendering a single, hitting a batter, having a hitter reach on an error, and then walking a batter to force in a run. Zach Penrod replaced Stewart, and he repeated the lesson, giving up a walk, a single, and hitting a batter to the first three hitters he faced. Another single, then a home run, and that 8-0 lead was suddenly a 10-8 deficit.
No prob, Alex Freeland and Ryan Ward answered with home runs in the seventh, and the Comets retook the lead 12-10. Bobby Miller was needed to bail out Paul Gervase in the ninth inning, and he struck out both hitters he faced for his first save for Oklahoma City.
Ryan Ward, with two home runs (36), three RBIs (122), and Alex Freeland, with three hits, his 30th double, his 15th home run, and four RBIs (80), had big games.
Double-A Tulsa
The Tulsa Drillers’ season ended as the Springfield Cardinals won Game 2 of the Divisional Series 3-0, taking the best-of-three series in two games. Tulsa managed to score just one run in the entire series. Tulsa starter Luke Fox gave up all three runs and was tagged with the loss. The Drillers had just four hits; left fielder Kole Myers had two of them, including a double.
Scores of games played Thursday, September 18th
Games scheduled for Friday, September 19th
Oklahoma City (Landon Knack) at Tacoma (Blas Castano), 7:05 PM PDT
