PCL Oklahoma City Comets

OKC Baseball Club Game Notes - June 5, 2024

Published on June 5, 2024 under Pacific Coast League (PCL)
Oklahoma City Comets News Release


Round Rock Express (29-27) at Oklahoma City Baseball Club (33-24)

Game #58 of 150/First Half #58 of 75/Home #26 of 75

Pitching Probables: RR-RHP Adrian Sampson (6-2, 4.27) vs. OKC-RHP Landon Knack (3-1, 3.25)

Wednesday, June 5, 2024 | Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark | Oklahoma City, Okla. | 7:05 p.m. CT

Radio: KGHM-AM 1340 The Game, 1340thegame.com, iHeartRadio; Video: MiLB.tv, Bally Live

Today's Game: The Oklahoma City Baseball Club will complete a suspended game from Tuesday night against the Round Rock Express at 7:05 p.m. at Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark. The game will resume in the bottom of the first inning with Round Rock leading, 1-0, and the teams will play nine innings...OKC has won five of the last six games and is 10-4 over the last 14 games...OKC has tied the team's season-high mark at nine games above.500 with a 33-24 record overall.

Last Game: Last night's series opener between Oklahoma City and Round Rock was suspended due to inclement weather after the completion of the top of the first inning with Round Rock leading, 1-0...On Sunday, Oklahoma City hit four home runs, including two by Trey Sweeney, and scored 13 straight runs in a 13-2 win against the Albuquerque Isotopes at Isotopes Park. Albuquerque took the first lead of the night in the series finale, scoring a run on a wild pitch in the third inning. After the first 11 OKC batters were retired, the team broke out with three runs in the fourth inning to take the lead for good. Kody Hoese hit a RBI double before Sweeney followed with a two-run home run for a 3-1 advantage. Drew Avans added a two-run homer in the fifth inning. Oklahoma City then tacked on four more runs in the sixth inning on a two-run double from Ryan Ward, RBI single by Austin Gauthier and RBI triple by Chris Okey. Andre Lipcius homered in the seventh inning for OKC before Sweeney hit his second homer of the night in the ninth inning, knocking a three-run shot out to right-center field, for a 13-1 lead. The Isotopes scored their second run with two outs in the bottom of the ninth.

Today's Probable Pitcher: Landon Knack (3-1) will take the mound for OKC in the resumption of the suspended game and start the second inning. He has recorded wins in three of his last four games with OKC, and the team has won all four games...Knack delivered five scoreless innings during his last start May 30 at Albuquerque. He allowed three hits - all singles - with two walks and five strikeouts...Between his time with OKC and the Los Angeles Dodgers, Knack has now allowed one or no runs in five of his last six starts, including each of the last three...In four starts with LAD this season, he is 1-1 with a 2.61 ERA, allowing six runs and 14 hits in 20.2 IP, with six walks and 16 K's. He's kept ML batters to a.189 average and owns a 0.97 WHIP...He made his ML debut April 17 against Washington and earned his first career win in his next start April 24 at Washington...Knack was OKC's Opening Night starter in Tacoma March 29, pitching 5.0 scoreless innings, and made three starts with OKC before his initial call-up...Knack split time between OKC and Double-A Tulsa last season, going a combined 5-1 in 22 starts with a 2.51 ERA over 100.1 IP with 99 K's and 30 walks, setting career highs in starts, innings and K's....He entered the 2024 season as Dodgers' No. 11 prospect by Baseball America and the No. 14 prospect by MLB Pipeline...The Johnson City, Tenn., native was selected in the second round of the 2020 MLB Draft out of East Tennessee State...Tonight is his second appearance of the season against the Express. During Game 2 of a doubleheader April 10 in Round Rock, he started and allowed three runs and three hits over 5.2 IP with two walks and six K's and was charged with the loss in OKC's 6-1 defeat. He held the Express scoreless through five innings.

Against the Express: 2024: 4-2 2023: 14-4 All-time: 180-141 At OKC: 83-71 OKC and Round Rock are playing their second series of 2024 and first of the season at Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark...OKC won the first series of the season, 4-2, at Dell Diamond April 9-14. After the first game of the series was postponed due to inclement weather, Round Rock won both games of a doubleheader the following day. OKC then closed the series with four straight wins, including 12-3 and 14-5 victories in the final two games...Andy Pages led OKC with 13 hits, including four home runs, and 12 RBI in the first series...Prior to the April series, the teams last met in the 2023 PCL Championship Series when OKC swept Round Rock, winning, 8-3, in Game 1, and, 5-2, in Game 2 for OKC's first league title since 1996...OKC won the 2023 regular-season series between the teams, 14-4, including wins in nine of the first 10 games and in four of the last five regular-season meetings...OKC swept the Express May 9-14 in the lone series in Round Rock. It was OKC's first-ever six-game series sweep since PCL teams started playing primarily six-game series in 2021. The last 12 regular-season meetings between the teams were played in OKC, with OKC winning both series, 4-2. During a 17-7 win Aug. 6, OKC set a new team record for hits in a home game with 22...During the regular season, Ryan Ward led OKC with 16 hits in 17 games against the Express, including seven doubles and three homers. In the postseason, Drew Avans racked up six hits and tied Michael Busch with three RBI.

Best Laid Plans: Weather had a significant impact on Tuesday's series opener at Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark. The start of the game was delayed 1 hour, 14 minutes due to rain in the area. Once play began, rain returned to Bricktown in the top of the first inning and play was suspended after the completion of the opening half inning. After another 29-minute delay, the game was suspended...It was the first suspended game for Oklahoma City since July 2, 2022 in El Paso when rain moved in at Southwest University Park during the fifth inning and the game was completed the next day...A game was last suspended at Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark May 10, 2019 against Nashville. However, that game could not be completed until over four months later on Aug. 20, 2019 during Nashville's next trip to OKC...OKC and Round Rock will now play a doubleheader Thursday, starting at 4:35 p.m., as Wednesday's originally scheduled game was postponed to allow maximum time for field conditions to improve prior to resuming the suspended game tonight...OKC has played one other doubleheader this season - April 10 in Round Rock - losing both games at Dell Diamond.

Trey Bien: Minor League Baseball named Trey Sweeney PCL Player of the Week following his breakout series in Albuquerque. He went 11-for-28 (.393) with 14 RBI and scored 10 runs, while leading the Minors with six homers, eight extra-base hits and 32 total bases during the week of May 27-June 2. He joins Ryan Ward (April 23-28) as the second OKC player to win a weekly award this season...On Sunday at Isotopes Park, Sweeney hit two home runs, racked up a game-high five RBI and scored three runs for his second multi-homer game of the series and OKC's seventh overall multi-homer game of the season. Sweeney also hit three home runs Wednesday in Albuquerque and his two multi-homer outings in the series were the first of his career. His three-homer was the first by an OKC player since Keibert Ruiz in July 2021...Sunday marked his team-best third game of the season with five RBI and second five-RBI outing of the series...Sweeney has now hit safely in a season-best 11 games, going 17-for-48 (.354) with seven homers, two doubles, a triple, 17 RBI and 15 runs scored. He owns the longest active hitting streak by an OKC player and third-longest active hitting streak in the league. It is the second-longest of the season by an OKC player behind Jonathan Araúz's 17-game streak in April...Sweeney last hit safely in 11 straight games with Double-A Somerset last season July 16-28. He also had a hitting streak of 12 games June 2-15 last season with Somerset, which was the longest hitting streak on the team in 2023 and is Sweeney's career long.

On the Offensive: Over the team's six-game road series in Albuquerque, Oklahoma City scored 59 runs and totaled 88 hits, including 14 homers. OKC batted.358 (88x246) in the series with 38 extra-base hits...In Sunday's series finale, OKC scored 13 runs on 12 hits, including eight extra-base hits, and has now scored at least nine runs in four straight games (47 R) and at least 11 runs three times in the last four games. OKC also recorded at least 10 hits in each game of the series in hitter-friendly Albuquerque, with at least a dozen hits in five of the six games and at least 17 hits three times...OKC also scored at least six runs in six straight games for the first time since Sept. 15-21, 2023 (51 R)...Over the final 30 innings in Albuquerque, OKC went 57-for-147 (.388) with 44 runs scored over that span. Of those 57 hits, 26 went for extra bases and OKC had a total of 167 batters come to the plate (5.6 per inning)...The team got off to a slow start Sunday, beginning 0-for-11, but then went 12-for-29 (.414) for the rest of night.

Dinger Details: OKC matched its season-high total with four home runs Sunday. It was the fourth time this season OKC hit four homers in a game, and it was the first time since April 28 in Albuquerque. In fact, three of the four times OKC hit four homers in a game this season occurred in Albuquerque...OKC has now homered in six consecutive games, racking up 14 HR over the stretch - tied for most in the PCL with Sugar Land during the span. This is the team's longest string of games with a home run since April 23-May 1 (8 G; 19 HR)...The outburst follows a stretch in which OKC was held to seven home runs over the previous 11 games...OKC has now registered six multi-homer games in the last eight games (17 HR) after having just three multi-homer games over the previous 16 games...However, OKC has allowed home runs in back-to-back games for the first time since a five-game stretch of allowing a home run May 11-16 (6 HR). OKC allowed a total of five homers over the final two games in Albuquerque, including tying a season-high mark with four homers allowed Saturday. Entering Saturday, OKC had allowed just three home runs in the previous 11 games and had not allowed a homer in four of the previous five games (1 HR total). Saturday also marked the second time in the last 30 games OKC allowed more than one home run in a game...OKC's 12 homers allowed in May were fewest in Triple-A and OKC's 43 homers allowed overall this season are fewest in Triple-A (57 G). OKC has allowed just nine home runs at Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark (24 G) for the fewest by a home team this season. And subtracting their 12 games in Albuquerque, OKC has allowed 26 home runs in the other 45 games this season.

Pitching Prowess: Sunday marked the fourth time in the Albuquerque series that Oklahoma City held the Isotopes to two runs or less and the fourth time in the series the Isotopes were held to eight hits or less. Despite the hitter-friendly environment, OKC ended up posting a 3.04 ERA (18 ER/53.1 IP) and held Albuquerque to a.236 batting average...In a bullpen game Sunday, six OKC pitchers combined for 14 strikeouts and allowed just two walks. It was the sixth time this season OKC racked up 14 or more strikeouts...Since April 30, Oklahoma City owns a 3.60 ERA and has allowed 119 runs over the 30-game stretch - the second-lowest ERA in all of Triple-A and tied for the fewest runs allowed in Triple-A with Round Rock...OKC limited opponents to four runs or less in 21 of 27 games in May and to three runs or less 14 times...Albuquerque went 6-for-52 (.115) with runners in scoring position over the six-game series.

The Warden: Ryan Ward went 2-for-5 with a double, scored a run and had two RBI Sunday. He has recorded multi-hit outings in each of his last four games (11x20) and in his six games since returning from the Injured List, Ward is 13-for-29 (.448) with three homers, three doubles, a triple, 10 RBI and seven runs scored...Ward has now hit safely in eight consecutive games, going back to May 4 before his time on the IL. During his longest hitting streak of the season, Ward is 16-for-37 (.432) with four doubles, a triple, four homers, 13 RBI and eight runs scored...He has 15 home runs with OKC this season pace all of Triple-A and his 16 homers overall this season, including a home run he hit while on a rehab assignment with the ACL Dodgers, are tied for the most in the Minors...Ward is up to a team-leading 43 RBI in just 33 games this season and 27 of his 41 hits this season have gone for extra bases (.725 SLG).

Two Good: On Sunday, OKC went 6-for-15 and scored six runs with two outs. Over the last four games, OKC has batted.417 (25x60) while scoring 26 runs with two down.

Check out the Oklahoma City Comets Statistics

Share: Facebook | Twitter/X | LinkedIn | Reddit | Email



Pacific Coast League Stories from June 5, 2024


The opinions expressed in this release are those of the organization issuing it, and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts or opinions of OurSports Central or its staff.

OurSports Central