McGuire & Dixon Lead Drillers Past Travelers
April 28, 2015 - Texas League (TL1)
Tulsa Drillers News Release
Less than 24 hours after the Tulsa Drillers pitching staff set a season-high mark of 19 strikeouts in a single game, starter Deck McGuire picked up where his fellow staff mates had left off. McGuire checked in with yet another superb start while Brandon Dixon ensured the Drillers would not be shutout for a second straight game, clubbing a leadoff home run as Tulsa defeated the Arkansas Travelers 5-0 at Dickey Stephens Park.
McGuire continued his dominant start to the season, turning in seven scoreless innings to pick up his fourth victory of the year. The strapping right-hander mixed all his pitches throughout the night as the Travelers hitters continued to struggle to solve Drillers pitching.
With the shutout, Tulsa pitchers have turned in just under 21 straight innings without giving up an earned run as the lone run the Travelers scored in Monday's contest was unearned.
After seeing his errant throw leave the Drillers on the wrong side of the score Monday night, Dixon quickly atoned with his bat on Tuesday night. The second baseman, batting leadoff for the first time this season, led off the game by working the count full before launching the payoff pitch from Travelers starter Tyler DeLoach over the left-center field fence to give the Drillers an early 1-0 lead.
Daniel Mayora extended the Tulsa advantage in the fourth as he came through with a sacrifice fly to score Corey Seager. Seager had doubled and moved over to third on a Brian Burgamy single before Mayora cashed him in.
DeLoach was solid in the loss, as he also pitched seven quality innings. His start was marred only by the homer from Dixon along with Mayora's sacrifice fly.
Dixon and Mayora got in on the action again in the eighth against reliever Kurt Spomer. Dixon led off the inning by reaching base as he took advantage of a throwing error from his Travelers counterpart at second. Jeremy Hazelbaker then laid down a sacrifice bunt that resulted in two men on and no one out. Spomer buckled down though and looked as if he might escape the inning after he got Seager to ground out and then struck out Burgamy for the second out. But Mayora cracked a clutch, two-out double to left field to pad the Drillers lead to 4-0.
The Drillers added an insurance run in the ninth courtesy of another Travelers fielding miscue, this time from shortstop Sherman Johnson. With two outs, Hazelbaker grounded a ball to short that Johnson simply missed as it rolled through his legs allowing Jon Garcia to score from second.
Ryan Dennick completed the first shutout of the year by the Drillers pitching staff as he fired two scoreless innings. Fittingly, the final out of the game was recorded on a groundball fielded by Brandon Dixon at second as he calmly tossed to first to retire Brian Hernandez and close out the night.
Tulsa will have a quick turnaround Wednesday as first pitch is scheduled for 11:00AM. RHP Jeremy Kehrt (1-2, 3.60 ERA) looks to build off his best outing of the season as he takes on Arkansas RHP Austin Wood (3-0, 2.89 ERA.)
NOTE: With the win, the Drillers gave standout Corey Seager a belated birthday present as the slugger turned 21 on Monday.
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