Drillers, De Jong Beaten by Travs
The Tulsa Drillers were looking to gain ground Wednesday night in their pursuit of a Texas League playoff berth. The Texas League's hottest pitcher, Chase De Jong, was taking the mound against the Arkansas Travelers in search of his 12th straight win. Unfortunately, the night did not go as planned as the Travelers plated six runs in the first two innings and the Drillers committed six errors in the outing, resulting in an 8-4 loss at ONEOK Field.
The defeat was the third straight for the Drillers and dropped them three games behind first-place Northwest Arkansas in the North Division standings of the TL. Tulsa has 12 games remaining in its regular season schedule.
De Jong's tough outing began early. The game's first batter, Travs' second baseman Sean Coyle began the night with his third home run of the season. The next batter, David Fletcher, singled and scored when Alex Yarbrough followed with a double. After De Jong recorded the first out of the inning, Jabari Henry made it a three-run first inning with a sacrifice fly that plated Yarbrough.
The Travelers scored three more runs in the second. The inning began with three straight singles that made it a four-run lead. The second run scored on a ground out before Yarbrough made it 6-0 with a run-scoring double that ended De Jong's night.
Tulsa cut into its deficit when Joey Curletta belted a two-run homer in the bottom of the second. It was Curletta's fourth Double-A home run and his 17th overall this season.
Another homer, a solo blast by Kyle Garlick in the fourth inning, pulled Tulsa two within 6-3.
The Drillers crept even closer with another run in the fifth. Lars Anderson led off with a base hit, moved to second on a wild pitch and scored on a base hit by Jordan Tarsovich to make it a two-run game.
Tulsa would get no closer though as the Travelers took advantage of fielding issues from the Drillers to retake control of the game in the sixth. Reliever Josh Sborz walked the first batter of the inning before Bo Way reached safely when Willie Calhoun could not field his potential double-play grounder. Zach Welz also reached when catcher Kyle Farmer fielded his sacrifice bunt attempt and threw wildly to third, loading the bases. Anthony Phillips delivered the only hit of the inning to plate a run before third baseman Tarsovich misplayed a grounder to give the Travs another run that made it 8-4.
Cody Bellinger made a bid to get the Drillers back in the game in the bottom of the eighth, but he was denied on a spectacular catch from Travs right fielder Welz. With two outs and a runner at first, Bellinger lofted a fly ball to deep right field. It looked to be the first baseman's 19th homer of the year, but Welz leaped high to make the catch before tumbling over the fence and into the Tulsa bullpen.
It was a rare off night for De Jong, who was charged with six runs in his 1.2 innings. It marked the most runs he has allowed all season in what was his shortest outing of the year. The loss was the first for De Jong since May 10th, and it snapped an 11-game winning streak for the right-hander.
Former major league first baseman Dan Johnson made his Drillers debut over the final two innings. Johnson, who has converted into a knuckleball pitcher, allowed only one hit while keeping the Travs off the scoreboard in the eighth and ninth innings. The right-hander spent 10 seasons in the majors as a position player with 6 different MLB teams.
The six errors in the game were the most by the Drillers since committing the same number in a game during the 2011 season. The all-time Tulsa baseball record is nine errors from the old Tulsa Oilers in 1976.
The Drillers will look to get back in the win column Thursday night in the third game of their four-game set with the Travelers. Pitcher are scheduled to be Seth Frankoff (2-3, 3.83 ERA) for Tulsa and Alex Blackford (7-7, 3.32 ERA) for Arkansas. First pitch at ONEOK Field is scheduled for 7:05pm.