Tulsa, OK – The Tulsa Drillers came close to a record-breaking offensive performance Sunday afternoon at ONEOK Field, falling just two runs short of matching the franchise record. It was still an impressive performance as the Drillers scored in all but one inning in posting a 21-10 victory over Wichita.
Tulsa matched a season high with 18 hits, including six home runs. Sean McLain accounted for two of the homers, marking the first two-homer game of his professional career.
The victory allowed the Drillers to maintain their 2½ games lead atop the North Division standings of the Texas League. Second-place Arkansas continued to stay on Tulsa’s heels in the first-half race, defeating Northwest Arkansas on Sunday.
The Drillers will close the first half with a six-game series with the Naturals in Springdale, Arkansas, while the Travelers will end the half with a seven-game set in Frisco.
The offensive production started early in Sunday’s series finale with the Wind Surge. The game’s first batter, Wichita’s Caleb Roberts, drew a leadoff walk in the top of the first inning and came around to score on Kala’i Rosario’s two-out double.
The Drillers answered with six runs in the bottom half of the first. The first three batters in the inning reached base as Josue De Paula worked a leadoff walk, Mike Sirota was hit by a pitch and Elijah Hainline reached on an infield to load. Kyle Nevin’s one-out single scored De Paula to tie the game, and Chris Newell’s sacrifice fly plated Sirota to put Tulsa in front.
Kole Myers singled home Hainline, and McLain capped the big inning with a three-run homer that gave the Drillers a 6-1 lead.
Wichita scored a single run in the second before the two teams combined to score in nine straight half innings.
An RBI single from De Paula in the bottom of the third gave Tulsa a 7-2 lead, but the Wind Surge got the run back in the top of the fourth.
In the bottom of the fourth, a two-run homer from Chris Newell made it 9-4 before Wichita plated a single run in the top of the fifth.
Back-to-back home runs from newcomer Hayden Gilliland and De Paula increased Tulsa’s lead to 11-4 in the bottom half of the fifth, but the Wind Surge needed just one hit in the sixth to pull to within 11-6.
The Drillers kept the runs coming with three more runs in the bottom of the sixth. A leadoff double from Zyhir Hope and a pair of walks set up a sacrifice fly from Kole Myers and a two-run double from Gilliland that made it 14-6.
The Wind Surge would still not go away, scoring four runs in the top of the seventh to reduce the lead to just four runs.
Tulsa finally put the outcome away with its second six-run inning of the day in the bottom of the seventh. McLain accounted for half of the runs when he belted his second three-run homer of the game.
Nevin closed out the scoring with a solo home run in the bottom of the eighth to account for the 31st run of the afternoon.
The 21 runs fell short of the Drillers franchise record of 23 which they have accomplished twice. They have scored 23 runs on two occasions, at Northwest Arkansas in 2022 and at home against the Naturals in the 2021 season.
GAME NOTES
*All nine players in the Drillers lineup had at least one hit in the game. Seven batters recorded multi-hits, led by De Paula and Hainline who both had three hits in the win.
*Tulsa starting pitcher Adam Serwinowski entered the game having won each of his last four starts, but he fell short in an attempt to make it five straight victories. Serwinowski worked just 3 1/3 inning and was charged with three runs.
*Sirota extended his long on-base streak when he was hit by a pitch in the first inning. The outfielder has now reached base safely in all 23 games that he has played with Tulsa and in 53 consecutive games overall. It is the longest on-base streak this season in all of Minor League Baseball.
*Nevin finished 1-4 to extend his hitting streak to eight straight games. His home run was his first since May 16. Five of his six homers this season have come at ONEOK Field.
*McLain set a new career high with six runs batted in. It is the second time in the past three weeks that he has established a career mark. He had four RBI on May 25 against Northwest Arkansas for his previous high.
*Jake Gelof did not play in the game, keeping his on-base streak at 26 consecutive games.
*With the victory, the Drillers extended their lead to 9-3 in this season’s Coors Light Propeller Series. It will take 13 victories to win this season’s Propeller Trophy, and there are 12 meetings remaining between the two teams.
UP NEXT
Tulsa will now go on the road for the final series of the first half. The Drillers will face Northwest Arkansas in a six-game series that will begin on Tuesday evening at 7:05 p.m. in Springdale, Arkansas. Neither team has yet to announce pitching plans for the series.