Drillers Swept by Cardinals in Doubleheader
TULSA, OK – The Tulsa Drillers struggles at ONEOK Field continued on Friday night. Tulsa entered the night with a home record of 5-8 and dropped two more games as the Springfield Cardinals earned a doubleheader sweep. The Drillers never held a lead in either game, falling 9-4 in game
TULSA, OK – The Tulsa Drillers struggles at ONEOK Field continued on Friday night. Tulsa entered the night with a home record of 5-8 and dropped two more games as the Springfield Cardinals earned a doubleheader sweep. The Drillers never held a lead in either game, falling 9-4 in game one and 7-4 in game two.
The losses dropped the Drillers record back under .500 at 11-13 and brought Tulsa’s record at ONEOK Field to 5-10.
The Cardinals used three, three-run innings to score all the runs they needed to claim the game-one win.
In the third, Jeremy Rivas drove in runs with a double, and Bryan Torres followed with an RBI single to stake the Cards to an early 3-0 lead.
One inning later, Nathan Church and Matt Lloyd each homered to increase the lead to 6-0.
With Tulsa trailing 9-0 in the bottom of the sixth inning, Austin Beck ended the shutout by driving in a run with a single to left.
The Drillers did not go down easy in the bottom of the seventh, as the team battled to score three final runs to close out game one. Consecutive singles put two runners on for Dalton Rushing, who cleared the bases by blasting his fourth home run of the season.
The Drillers quickly fell behind in game two. Springfield took a 4-0 lead in the first inning, aided by two Tulsa errors from Jose Ramos and Austin Gauthier.
The Drillers immediately responded in the bottom half of the first as Brendon Davis hit a three-run homer.
Gauthier followed with a solo homer in the second inning to tie the game.
Springfield singled in the third inning to score two runs and take a 6-4 lead.
The game remained scoreless for the next two innings before the Drillers squandered their biggest opportunity of the night. With one out in the sixth inning, two hit batters and a double loaded the bases. Tulsa failed to capitalize, as the next two batters struck out and grounded out to end the inning.
INSIDE THE GAMES
*The Drillers game one starting pitcher, Orlando Ortiz-Mayr, was tagged for six runs on five hits and received his second loss.
*Kendall Williams made his fifth start of the year in game two. The Mississippi native worked three innings and gave up six runs, but only three were earned. Williams was charged with the game-two loss.
*Gauthier reached base in six of his eight plate appearances with three hits and three walks across both games. He is currently second in the Texas League with 22 walks this season.
*Relievers Michael Hobbs, Ben Harris, Sauryn Lao and Ryan Sublette each had scoreless outings on Friday.
*Yeiner Fernandez finished 0-for-2 in game one but was hit by a pitch to increase his on-base streak to 17 games. The streak increased to 18 games with a double in the first inning of game two.
*Major league veteran Matt Carpenter made his first rehab start in game one on Friday for Springfield. Carpenter finished 1-for-2 with a walk, a run batted in, and a run scored. He did not appear in game two and is expected to be with Springfield through Sunday.
*In game two, the Drillers wore specialty Marvel jerseys and caps for Marvel’s Defenders of the Diamond night at ONEOK Field.
UP NEXT:
The Drillers and Cardinals will continue their six-game series with game five on Saturday night. Starting time is set for 7:00 p.m. and the starting pitchers are expected to be:
SPR – RHP Ian Bedell (1-1, 6.05 ERA) TUL – RHP Yon Castro (0-0, 0.00 ERA)