Four Errors Lead to Tulsa’s First Road Loss of the Season
WICHITA, KS – The Tulsa Drillers perfect road record suffered its first blemish on Thursday night with a 7-6 loss to the Wichita Wind Surge in ten innings. It was the first loss away from ONEOK Field this season for the Drillers who had been victorious in their first five
WICHITA, KS – The Tulsa Drillers perfect road record suffered its first blemish on Thursday night with a 7-6 loss to the Wichita Wind Surge in ten innings. It was the first loss away from ONEOK Field this season for the Drillers who had been victorious in their first five road games.
Fielding miscues were Tulsa’s undoing as six of Wichita’s seven runs were unearned thanks to four errors from the Drillers.
The defeat snapped the Drillers two-game winning streak and dropped their season record back to .500 at 6-6.
Early on, it appeared as if the Drillers were headed to their sixth straight road win as they jumped out to a 4-0 lead.
Half of the early offense for the Drillers came courtesy of Diego Cartaya. Cartaya belted a two-run homer in the bottom of the second inning, his first of the season, to open the game’s scoring.
An RBI single by Lolo Sanchez and a sacrifice fly from Dalton Rushing in the fourth inning increased the lead to 4-0.
The Wind Surge promptly erased the margin with four runs of their own in the bottom half of the fourth. The four-run inning featured two hits, two walks and two errors that helped make three of the runs unearned.
Two more miscues from the Drillers, one in the fifth and another in the sixth, gave Wichita two more unearned runs and increased Tulsa’s deficit to 6-4.
It remained that way until the ninth inning when the Drillers rallied to tie the game and force extra innings. With one out, Sanchez walked and scored when Austin Gauthier’s triple trimmed the deficit to one. A ground ball single from Rushing brought Gauthier home to tie the game and keep the Drillers hopes alive.
In the tenth inning, Tulsa could not plate the placed runner, setting the stage for a Wichita walk off. With one out and runners at the corners, Ben Ross hit a deep drive to center that landed just short of the warning track to bring in the winning run.
INSIDE THE GAME
*The four errors were a season high for the Drillers. They entered the contest with just 9 errors in their first 11 games.
*The win was just the second of the season for the Wind Surge and snapped a franchise record nine-game losing streak.
*Sanchez returned to the Tulsa lineup after missing the previous four games with an injury. Batting in the ninth spot, Sanchez had one hit and now has a .423 batting average on the season.
*Tulsa starting pitcher Ben Casparius allowed just two hits, but the errors and a pair of walks set up Wichita to score its four, fourth-inning runs, but only one was earned. Casparius had seven strikeouts.
*Tulsa out-hit Wichita in the game 7-6.
*The temperature in Wichita had dipped below 50 degrees when the game ended, but a strong north wind made it feel even colder.
*UP NEXT:
*The Drillers will continue their six-game series in Wichita on Friday night with game four of the set. Starting time is scheduled for 7:05 p.m. at Riverfront Stadium, and the starting pitchers are slated to be:
TUL - RHP Orlando Ortiz-Mayr (0-1, 10.00 ERA)
WCH- RHP Marco Raya (0-0, 3.00 ERA)