Tulsa, OK – The numbers 30 and 80 were prominent for the Tulsa Drillers on Wednesday afternoon in their meeting with Wichita at ONEOK Field. Jake Gelof’s 30th home run in the eighth inning broke a tie score and propelled the Drillers to a 5-4 victory, their 80th win of the season.
Gelof’s blast was only the third hit of the day for the Drillers, and it gave them their only lead of the game.
Tulsa has won the first two games of its series with the Wind Surge and now has an 80-48 record on the season. The 80 wins are the most in Drillers franchise history, a period that covers 49 seasons.
The last Tulsa team to have more than 80 victories was the 1968 Tulsa Oilers, who were the Triple-A affiliate for the St. Louis Cardinals. That Oilers team, which has been considered by some as one of the best minor league teams of all-time under manager Warren Spahn, finished with a 95-53 record in the Pacific Coast League.
Wednesday’s game began with a pair of early two-run innings that opened the game’s scoring. Wichita struck first, taking a 2-0 lead in the top of the second. Consecutive doubles from Caden Kendle and Andrew Crossetti put runners at second and third. An infield ground out from Jaime Ferrer plated Kendle, and a two-out single from Graham Brown scored Crossetti.
The Drillers played small ball to tie the score in the bottom of the third. With one out, Elijah Hainline bunted for a base hit and Joe Vetrano reached safely on an error. Taylor Young followed and matched Hainline by bunting for a base hit, and when pitcher Chris Vallimont’s hurried throw to first skipped into right field, Hainline raced home with Tulsa’s first run. Josue De Paula scored Vetrano with a sacrifice fly to deep right field, tying the score at 2-2.
Wichita retook the lead in the top of the sixth inning. Reliever Cam Day struck out the first two batters of the inning before a walk and a base hit set up a run-scoring single from Marek Houston.
The Drillers tied the score again with a run in the bottom of the seventh, and they did it without a hit. Three straight one-out walks from Wind Surge reliever Luis Quinones loaded the bases and gave Hainline a chance to even the score with a sacrifice fly.
Gelof broke the tie in the following inning. With one out, De Paula worked a walk, but Kole Myers popped out for the second out of the inning. De Paula narrowly avoided being picked off first base before Gelof fell into a 1-2 hole. On the next pitch, he belted a liner that just cleared the fence in left-center field for a two-run homer that put Tulsa in front for the first time at 5-3.
Reliever Kelvin Ramirez, who had worked a 1-2-3 eighth inning for Tulsa, came back out for the ninth. He retired the inning’s first batter before giving up a double and a single that put runners at the corners and brought the potential, go-ahead run to the plate. Brandon Winokur made it a one-run game with a sacrifice fly before Ramirez struck out Kendle to end the game and give Tulsa win number 80.
GAME NOTES
*The Drillers won despite totaling just three hits, two of which were bunt hits in the third inning. They were held without another hit until Gelof’s game-winning home run in the eighth.
*Gelof has now moved into fifth place on the Drillers all-time, season home run list. He now trails just Joe Koshansky who hit 31 homers in 2006, Bubba Smith and Kevin Buckley who hit 32 in 1998 and 1983 and Tim Wheeler who holds the team’s all-time record with 33 homers in 2011.
*Gelof’s homer also allowed him to extend his hitting streak to ten straight games. He has also driven in a run in four straight games.
*The sacrifice fly from De Paula in the third inning gave him an even 100 RBI on the season, making him just the fifth Drillers batter to reach the 100 mark. He is only the second Drillers batter to have 100 RBI while also scoring 100 runs, joining Carlos Pena who accomplished the feat for the Drillers in the 2000 season. In the Drillers season record book, De Paula has a chance the year among the Top 10 in several offensive categories, including hits, runs, RBI, doubles, home runs, walks and slugging percentage.
*As a team, the Drillers moved closer to the franchise’s all-time scoring record. They have now scored 791 runs on the season, just 15 shy of the record 806 runs scored by the 2000 squad.
*The Drillers used six pitchers in the game with Ramirez picking up the win, his ninth of the season which ties him with Adam Serwinowski for the team lead. The nine victories are just one behind Texas League leader Kade Anderson who collected ten wins with Arkansas before being promoted to the majors by the Seattle Mariners.
*Lucas Wepf worked 1 1/3 scoreless relief innings. Wepf has not allowed an earned over his last 11 games and 12 1/3 innings pitched.
UP NEXT
The Drillers and Wind Surge will continue their series on Thursday night at ONEOK Field with game three of their six-game set. First pitch is scheduled for 7:05 p.m. and the pitching matchup is slated to be:
Wichita – RHP Cory Lewis (2-8, 3.97 ERA)
Tulsa – RHP Aidan Foeller (1-1, 1.27 ERA)