Whoa! Space Cowboys score 17 runs ... in 1 inning

August 20th, 2022

The bottom of the sixth inning between the Oklahoma City Dodgers and Sugar Land Space Cowboys started like many innings do: with a leadoff single.

The Dodgers were coming off a 4-1 win during the first game of their doubleheader Friday with the Space Cowboys, and they were just an inning-and-a-half away from potentially heading into the weekend with a pair of wins.

Instead, that leadoff single would be just the beginning of, perhaps, the wildest half-inning those in attendance had ever seen.

The Space Cowboys would go on to get nine more hits (10 total), nine walks and a hit-by-pitch, plating a team-record 17 runs in an unbelievable offensive explosion that led to a 21-4 win.

Sugar Land sent 23 batters to the plate. The Dodgers cycled through four different pitchers in the inning -- veteran relief pitcher Pedro Baéz started the inning.

Oklahoma City didn't record their first out until the eighth batter. Two batters after that, the Dodgers recorded their second out by getting catcher Korey Lee to pop out. The team would face 13 more hitters before finally getting out of the inning when Yanier Diaz, who homered earlier in the inning, struck out.

Alex De Goti went 2-for-2 with two singles, a walk and four RBIs in the inning. Scott Manea also reached three times. Eight of their nine hitters (sorry, Corey Julks) reached base two or more times in the inning.

The team's 21 total runs were also a Sugar Land record for a single game.

No Major League team has scored 17 or more runs in a single inning since at least 1974. Only the Texas Rangers, on April 19, 1996, against the Baltimore Orioles, have scored 16 runs in an inning since then.

Incredibly, Sugar Land's monster inning isn't a Minor League Baseball record. In 1930, the Waco Cubs scored 18 runs in a single inning versus the Beaumont Exporters. During that inning, the 5-foot-6 Gene "Half Pint" Rye clubbed three home runs.