Top Prospects, Fox Shine in Drillers Opening Night Win

Tulsa, OK – The 2026 season opener on Thursday at ONEOK Field for the Tulsa Drillers wasn’t perfect, but it was close. On a summer-like night in downtown Tulsa with the temperature at an unseasonable 82 degrees at the first pitch, the Drillers got big hits from Los Angeles Dodgers top prospects Josue De Paula and Zyhir Hope and an impressive outing on the mound from starting pitcher Luke Fox. The result was a 5-1 victory over San Antonio before a paid crowd of 7,314.

It marked the largest opening night crowd at ONEOK Field since the 2019 opener.

BOXSCORE

The first run of the season came in the bottom of the second inning, and it came without the Drillers recording a hit. Elijah Hainline, Chris Newell and Griffin Lockwood-Powell drew three consecutive walks to open the inning, and Hainline came home when first baseman Joe Vetrano grounded into a 4-6-3 double play.

Tulsa doubled its lead in its next at bat. With one out, De Paula drew another walk and moved into scoring position by stealing second base. With two outs, Hope plated De Paula with a lined single to centerfield that made the score 2-0.

Starting pitcher Fox was outstanding while working with the lead. The lefthander blanked the Missions through the first five innings with the only damage to his pitching line coming in the sixth inning when San Antonio’s eighth-place hitter, Luis Verdugo, belted a solo home run.

It was the only blemish of the night for Fox and the Drillers. Tulsa closed out the victory by scoring single runs in the sixth, seventh and eighth innings.

Lockwood-Powell singled home the run in the sixth while De Paula singled home Kendall George, who had doubled, in the seventh.

The final run of the night scored when George drew a bases-loaded walk in the bottom of the eighth.

Tulsa’s bullpen closed out the victory with three scoreless innings. Evan Shaw and Roque Gutierrez combined for the scoreless seventh, and Cam Day pitched around a hit and a walk to blank the Missions in the eighth.

Christian Suarez took over for the ninth and issued a leadoff walk before retiring the next three batters to close out the win.

GAME NOTES

*Suarez not only threw the last pitch of the night, he also threw the first pitch. The left-handed reliever was recognized and honored prior to the game for being a member of Venezuela World Baseball Classic Champion squad. Suarez delivered the ceremonial first pitch while wearing his WBC gold medal.

*De Paula, who is ranked the #1 prospect in the Dodgers minor league system by MLB Pipeline, had two hits, scored a run, knocked in another and stole a base.

*MLB Pipeline has Hope ranked as the #2 prospect, and the right fielder finished 1-4 with an RBI.

*Fox was impressive, needing just 70 pitches to work his six full innings. Fifty of the pitches were strikes. Fox did not walk a batter while striking out eight and allowing just the one run on three hits.

*It was the first opening-night victory for a Tulsa starting pitcher since Justin Wrobleski won at Northwest Arkansas in 2024. You have to go back even further to find the last Drillers starter to work six innings in an opening night game. In 2012, Edwar Cabrera also worked six innings in a 7-2 opening night win at San Antonio.

*The well-played game took just 2 hours and 19 minutes to complete.

*The game was televised in the Los Angeles area on SportsNet LA.

UP NEXT

The Drillers will continue their season-opening, three-game series with the Missions on Friday night. It will be the first News On 6 Friday Night Fireworks Show of the year with the game’s first pitch scheduled for 7:00 p.m. at ONEOK Field.

The starting pitchers for game two are scheduled to be:

SAN – RHP Miguel Mendez (8-7, 3.22 ERA in 2025)
TUL – LHP Adam Serwinowski (5-7, 4.03 ERA in 2025)