July 25 Game Notes: Tacoma Rainiers @ Oklahoma City Baseball Club

TACOMA RAINIERS (55-43) @ OKLAHOMA CITY BASEBALL CLUB (49-49)
Thursday, July 25 • 5:05 PM PT • Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark • Oklahoma City, OK
RHP Casey Lawrence (5-7, 6.12) vs. RHP Chris Vallimont (1-4, 9.24)

TONIGHT’S GAME: The Rainiers and Baseball Club will meet for game three tonight, with the series even at one game apiece. Casey Lawrence will take the ball for Tacoma, set to face Oklahoma City for the first time in his career. The veteran is 5-7 with a 6.12 ERA entering play tonight, allowing 71 earned runs on 131 hits and 31 walks. He has struck out 75 batters over a league-leading 104.1 innings pitched, but opponents are hitting .301 against him. Lawrence has walked seven batters over his last two outings, accounting for 23% of his walks on the year in his last 10.0 innings. Opposite Lawrence will be Chris Vallimont toeing the rubber for the Baseball Club. Vallimont is coming off the development list to make this start tonight, his first game since July 14. In nine games (eight starts) with Oklahoma City this year, the right-hander is 1-4 with a 9.24 ERA, allowing 38 earned runs on 49 hits and 23 walks. He has struck out 28 batters over his 37.0 innings, as opponents are hitting .325 against him.

4 IS THE MAGIC NUMBER: The Rainiers were held to just one run in Wednesday’s 10-1 beatdown, failing to generate much offense. Tacoma hasn’t needed too many runs to win this season, though, going 50-22 when scoring four runs or more, compared to a 5-21 when failing to do so, a trend that has held up in the Rainiers’ last five games.

SCORELESS STREAKING: Rainiers’ reliever Trevor Kelley has been dominant of late, not allowing an earned run in his last 12 outings, the longest active streak in the Pacific Coast League. Over those 11 games (which started June 13th at Round Rock), Kelley has struck out 19 in 13.2 innings of work, with a WHIP of 1.39. Moreover, of those 12 outings, three have extended over an inning, with Kelley logging six strikeouts compared to just four baserunners (two hits and two walks) in those longer appearances. Meanwhile, fellow righty Joey Krehbiel has put together a strong run of his own, not allowing an earned run in his past five appearances, dating back to July 5th at Salt Lake. Over 4.2 innings pitched, Krehbiel has struck out two while maintaining a WHIP of 0.64 and holding opponents to a .118 batting average. Similarly, Eduard Bazardo has held opponents scoreless over his past five outings as well. In those 5.1 innings, Bazardo has surrendered just four total baserunners (just one hit) for a WHIP of 0.75 and a batting average against of .063, while striking out seven.

AGE IS JUST A NUMBER: Tonight, Tacoma will send starter Casey Lawrence to toe the rubber for the Rainiers in game three of this six-game set. Despite being one of the oldest pitchers in the league at 36 years of age, Lawrence has been a workhorse for Tacoma, leading the PCL in innings pitched (104.1) and one game behind the league leaders in games started (Lawrence has 18 starts entering tonight, while three other pitchers have started a game 19 times this season). However, Lawrence has been more than an innings eater, ranking in the top 10 in multiple categories, including strikeouts (75 – eighth) and WHIP (1.55 – ninth). The righty is also one of just four PCL pitchers to log a complete game this season, along with teammate Emerson Hancock and two others.

OBP – ON BASE PLENTY: Entering play Thursday, Tacoma ranks second in the PCL in OBP at .370, trailing Sugar Land’s .373 mark, despite the third-fewest hits in the league. A big reason for the Rainiers’ on-base success has been their ability to draw walks, ranking first in the PCL with 506 free passes earned, six more than the second-place Space Cowboys. As such, Tacoma has translated these baserunners into runs, with their 601 runs scored just 12 behind, no surprise, Sugar Land.

200 AND BEYOND: Tuesday night, the Rainiers became the first Triple-A team to reach 200 stolen bases on the season, as Kobe Kato stole second base in his Triple-A debut. Last night, Tacoma continued their running rampage, pilfering three more bags (Duke Ellis had two, while Samad Taylor added one more) to raise their total to 203, 48 more than second-place Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. Tacoma has five players in the top seven on PCL’s leaderboard – Cade Marlow (first with 43), Samad Taylor (second with 34), Ryan Bliss (tied third with 28), Jonatan Clase (fifth with 26), and Leo Rivas (tied seventh with 24) – despite all of them having spent some time with Seattle this season. Moreover, new addition Duke Ellis has joined in on the base-stealing brigade, with nine swipes in ten games played.

FIRST TIME BACK: Last night was Jordan Holloway’s first game in two weeks and he was rusty out of relief. Prior to entering last night’s game, the right-hander last pitched on July 10 against Albuquerque. Holloway led Tacoma’s pitching staff with four walks, striking out two over his lone inning of work. Walks have been a problem all year for Holloway, as he has walked 38 batters compared to 34 strikeouts in just 25.0 innings pitched.

MAKE THEM BEAT YOU: Tacoma’s four-game winning streak was snapped with their 10-1 loss last night, as they beat themselves to allow the Baseball Club to even the series. The pitching staff walked 11 batters, with Jordan Holloway leading the way with four, followed by Blas Castano with three. They also had two big fielding errors, allowing four unearned runs to score.

AGAINST OKLAHOMA CITY: Tacoma and Oklahoma City will play game three of their six-game set tonight, matching up for the sixth time this season. The current series is now even at one game apiece, while Tacoma leads the season series between the two teams three games to two. The Rainiers also have the lead all-time over Oklahoma City by five games, at 96-91.

SHORT HOPS: Tacoma is 2-7 on the road in Thursday contests this season and 5-10 overall on the fifth day of the week; the Rainiers have lost their past three Thursday games entering play tonight...the Baseball Club left 15 runners on base last night, the most any team has stranded against the Rainiers this season; the previous high was 12 runners left on, done twice, most recently by Reno on July 20…Tacoma didn’t muster a single hit against Oklahoma City’s bullpen last night, as four relievers combined to allow just one walk while striking out four over 4.0 innings.