Ward Homers in 3-1 OKC Loss Saturday

Albuquerque Isotopes — 3

Oklahoma City Baseball Club — 1

Saturday, June 22, 2024 – Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark – Oklahoma City, Okla.

Game Summary: Ryan Ward hit his league-leading 19th home run of the season for the Oklahoma City Baseball Club, but it ended up as OKC’s lone run of the night in a 3-1 loss to the Albuquerque Isotopes Saturday night at Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark. Albuquerque built a 3-0 lead with home runs by Greg Jones in the third inning, Drew Romo in the fourth inning and with a RBI single by Aaron Schunk in the fifth inning. Ward then homered out to right field in the seventh inning to cut the Albuquerque lead to two runs.

Of Note:

-Oklahoma City has now lost three straight games, is 2-8 in the last 10 games and 7-12 in the month of June…Albuquerque leads the six-game series, 4-1.

-Ryan Ward hit his league-leading 19th Triple-A home run of the season and his 20th home run of the season overall including one homer while on a rehab appearance with the ACL Dodgers. Ward has now hit safely in 10 of his last 11 games, going 12-for-44 with seven extra-base hits, six RBI and eight runs scored. Overall this season, 35 of his 56 hits have gone for extra bases.

-Justin Wrobleski (0-1) made his Triple-A debut and set a career-high with 11 strikeouts over 5.0 innings. He allowed two solo home runs and six hits overall with three runs and one walk and he was charged with the loss. His previous career-high mark for strikeouts was 10 set June 14, 2023 with Great Lakes against Wisconsin.

-Oklahoma City pitchers recorded 16 strikeouts for the most by the team since posting a season-high 17 strikeouts May 5 against Salt Lake…However, OKC allowed two home runs and has now allowed nine homers over the first five games of the series.

-Saturday marked the 12th time in 23 games between OKC and Albuquerque this season that a game was decided by two runs or less. Through 74 games overall in 2024, 39 of OKC’s games have been decided by two runs or less and OKC has played in the most games decided by one or two runs in the PCL this season.

-Drew Avans drew a walk to extend his season-best on-base streak to 18 games — tied for the second-longest on-base streak of the season for an OKC player.

-Andre Lipcius singled to extend his hitting streak to seven games (8-for-32).

-Austin Gauthier finished with a multi-hit game for OKC, going 2-for-4 with a double.

Next Up: Oklahoma City and Albuquerque wrap up their season series, as well as the first half of the PCL season, at 2:05 p.m. on a City Celebration Sunday at Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark. Players and coaches will wear commemorative city-themed jerseys and 405 area code caps on the field. Select players will be available to sign autographs for fans prior to first pitch, and following the game, kids can run the bases.

Tickets for OKC home games for the remainder of the season are available now at okcbaseball.com/tickets. Live radio coverage of each OKC Baseball Club game begins 15 minutes before first pitch on AM 1340 "The Game," 1340thegame.com and through the free iHeartRadio or MiLB First Pitch apps. Sunday home games will be broadcast live on KOCB-TV in Oklahoma City (channel 34 on digital antennas and DirecTV; channel 11 on Cox cable).