PCL Oklahoma City Comets

OKC Dodgers Game Notes - September 5, 2023

September 5, 2023 - Pacific Coast League (PCL)
Oklahoma City Comets News Release


Oklahoma City Dodgers (30-27/80-50) at Sugar Land Space Cowboys (19-38/52-80)

Game #131 of 148/Second Half #58 of 75/Road #64 of 75

Pitching Probables: OKC-LHP Mike Montgomery (3-3, 5.68) vs. SUG-LHP Colton Gordon (2-2, 6.98)

Tuesday, September 4, 2023 | Constellation Field | Sugar Land, Texas | 6:35 p.m. CT

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

Today's Game: The Oklahoma City Dodgers open a six-game road series against the Sugar Land Space Cowboys at 6:35 p.m. at Constellation Field...The Dodgers enter the series with back-to-back wins and wins in four of their last five games. OKC is seeking its first three-game win streak since Aug. 2-4.

Last Game: Pitchers Walker Buehler and Gavin Stone combined to hold the Round Rock Express scoreless and to one hit through eight innings, while the Oklahoma City Dodgers hit three home runs in a 9-1 win Sunday afternoon at Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark. Buehler opened a Major League Rehab Assignment and pitched two perfect innings with two strikeouts. Stone (7-4) followed with six scoreless innings, allowing one hit and one walk with seven strikeouts while earning the win. The Dodgers scored a run in the first inning when Óscar Mercado hit into a fielder's choice with the bases loaded. Oklahoma City added four runs in the fourth inning on a solo home run by Hunter Feduccia and a three-run double by Jonny DeLuca for a 5-0 lead. Mercado connected on a two-run home run onto the Budweiser Deck in left field in the seventh inning and Miguel Vargas belted a towering two-run homer over the LED board in left field in the eighth inning to put the Dodgers ahead, 9-0. Round Rock's first hit of the game came in the seventh inning and the Express ended the shutout bit with a bloop RBI single by Elier Hernandez with two outs in the ninth inning.

Today's Probable Pitcher: Mike Montgomery (3-3) makes his first start of September and his 13th start overall with OKC...He pitched Aug. 29 against Round Rock in OKC, allowing five runs and eight hits over 4.0 IP with four walks and three strikeouts. He did not factor into the decision of OKC's 10-9 defeat...Over his last four games, Montgomery has surrendered 24 runs and 31 hits over 17.1 IP, along with 15 walks. His season ERA has jumped from 2.72 to 5.68 as opponents have batted .388 (31x80) in that time...In his previous seven games from June 28-Aug. 2, Montgomery posted a 1.16 ERA (4 ER/31.0 IP), allowing 17 hits with opponents batting .159 (17x107)...He was named the PCL Pitcher of the Month for July. Over five appearances (three starts), he went 2-0 with a 1.21 ERA (3 ER/22.1 IP) and opponents batted .132 (10x76) with no home runs and 23 K's. He was also named PCL Pitcher of the Week for July 24-30 following his outing July 27 in Reno that included five scoreless innings and retiring 15 of 18 batters...He signed a minor league contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers June 7 after starting the season with the Acereros Del Norte in the Mexican League...Montgomery made 183 appearances (70 starts) in MLB from 2015-20 with Seattle (2015-16), the Chicago Cubs (2016-19) and Kansas City (2019-20)...In 2016, he earned the save in the Cubs' World Series-clinching Game 7, entering in the bottom of the 10th inning and securing the game's final out in Cleveland...Montgomery was originally selected by the Royals with the 36th overall pick in the 2008 MLB Draft from William S. Hart High School in Santa Clarita, Calif...This is Montgomery's third start of the season against Sugar Land. He owns a 1-0 record, allowing one unearned run and six hits with seven walks and 10 strikeouts over 8.2 IP.

Against the Space Cowboys: 2023: 14-4 2022: 16-8 All-time: 42-24 At SUG: 16-11

The Dodgers and Space Cowboys meet for their fourth and final series and second of the season in Sugar Land...The Dodgers won the first three series of the season April 11-16, 4-2, and May 16-21, 5-1, in OKC as well as the most recent series in Sugar Land June 28-July 3, 5-1. It was the third time this season that the Dodgers won five consecutive games during a single series as they closed out the series with five straight wins. In each of the five wins, the Dodgers limited the Space Cowboys to exactly two runs in each game...Through the first three series of the season, Drew Avans led OKC with 16 hits, 19 runs scored and 20 walks, while Ryan Ward paced the Dodgers with 13 RBI and four homers against the Space Cowboys...The Dodgers outscored the Space Cowboys, 100-61, through the first three series as they held the Space Cowboys to a .200 AVG, but Sugar Land hit 19 homers compared to OKC's 18...The Dodgers won the 2022 series, 16-8, and went 11-4 at Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark. The Dodgers did not lose back-to-back games to Sugar Land at any point last season...Of last season's 24 total meetings, nine were one-run games and six of 18 meetings so far in 2023 have been decided by one run...In each of the team's three series this season, the Dodgers have won four of the first five games.

Getting Back on Track: The Dodgers have won back-to-back games, four of the last five games and five of the last seven games to move back into first place in the overall PCL standings with a 1.5-game lead ahead of second-place Round Rock. OKC defeated Round Rock, 4-2, in their previous series in OKC, snapping their first streak of three straight series losses since May 6-25, 2021...The recent winning stretch follows a 4-15 run by Oklahoma City from Aug. 5-26 as the Dodgers finished August with 10 wins (10-17), tied for second fewest in the league last month with Salt Lake and ahead of Sugar Land's eight wins (8-19). OKC had not won fewer than 12 games in a month since May 2021 (9-14). It was the team's lowest monthly winning percentage since going 9-19 in August 2019.

The Big Picture: The Dodgers recorded their 80th win of the season Sunday, becoming the eighth OKC team during the Bricktown era (since 1998) to reach the 80-win mark and fourth team during the Dodgers affiliation (since 2015)...The Dodgers (80-50) are tied for the second-most wins in the Minors, trailing only Triple-A Norfolk (81-50) and tied with High-A Cedar Rapids (80-46)...The Dodgers have held at least a share of first place in the PCL overall standings for all but seven days this season, holding first place from April 1-Aug. 25...However, Oklahoma City is in sixth place in the second half of the PCL season standings at 30-27, five games behind first-place Round Rock (35-22)...This season's OKC squad became the fastest PCL team to reach 50, 60 and 70 wins since at least 2005, as data from 2004 and earlier is not available. They also became the second-fastest PCL team to reach 75 wins (117 games) since at least 2005, with the 2017 Memphis Redbirds doing it two games earlier (115 games). The fastest PCL team to reach 80 wins was also the 2017 Memphis Redbirds who reached the milestone in 121 games (80-41)...During the Bricktown era (since 1998), OKC's best previous record through 130 games was in 2015 when the Dodgers also went 79-51...OKC won the PCL's first-half title (50-23) and will host a best-of-three PCL Championship Series Sept. 26-28 against the winner of the second half.

Mound Matters: Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Walker Buehler opened a Major League Rehab Assignment Sunday and retired all six batters he faced, with two via strikeout. He threw 24 pitches, including 15 strikes. The two-time MLB All-Star is recovering from right elbow UCL reconstruction and appeared in his first formal game in 451 days...Gavin Stone followed and equaled his season high with 6.0 scoreless innings. He entered the game to start the third inning and retired the first 11 batters he faced and 18 of the 20 batters he faced overall, allowing a walk in the sixth inning and a double in the seventh inning. On Monday, he was named PCL Pitcher of the Week for Aug. 28-Sept. 3, receiving a weekly honor for the third time this season, all since July 9. Stone is the 11th OKC player to receive a weekly award this season and is the fifth OKC pitcher in the last six weeks to receive a weekly honor...The Dodgers have allowed a total of seven runs over their last five wins and 11 runs over the last five games overall...OKC has allowed one or no runs in back-to-back for the fourth time this season...The team has not allowed a home run in a season-best five straight games and has allowed just one home run over the last seven games. It's the team's longest stretch without allowing a home run since a run of six consecutive games June 10-15, 2021...The Dodgers are now 42-2 when allowing three runs or less and 27-10 when not allowing a home run this season.

Jonny Be Good: Jonny DeLuca went 2-for-4 with a double, three RBI, a walk and scored a run Sunday. He has hit safely in five of his last six games, going 9-for-20 with four doubles, a triple, two homers and seven RBI...DeLuca rejoined OKC as part of a Major League Rehab Assignment Aug. 24 and was optioned to OKC Sept. 1. In 25 Triple-A games this season, DeLuca is slashing .327/.404/.622 with 15 extra-base hits and 27 RBI. Since his return to the team, he has struck out once in 34 plate appearances.

How He Drew It Up: Drew Avans did not play Sunday but went 1-for-3 with two walks and scored a run Saturday. He hit safely in each of the five games he played in the Round Rock series, going 7-for-17. The output follows a 2-for-20 stretch over his previous seven games...Overall this season, Avans leads the Dodgers with 119 hits, 87 runs scored and 71 walks. His run total ranks third in the league while his walks are sixth and hits are tied for eighth...At 305 hits over the last three seasons, Avans is now one of nine players during the Bricktown era (since 1998) to amass 300 career hits.

Fork in the Road: The Dodgers are tied with High-A Hudson Valley for the most road wins in the Minors with a 41-22 record. This is just the fourth time in the team's Bricktown era (since 1998) that OKC has reached at least 40 road wins in a season and just the third time the team has recorded 41 road wins. It's the first time since the 2016 season when OKC went 42-28 on the road. However, the Dodgers lost nine of 12 games of their last road trip and have lost 10 of their last 14 road games overall. For comparison, prior to the current 4-10 stretch, the Dodgers went 26-5 over their previous 31 road games between May 9-July 28.

Back to School: Starting today, new pitch timer regulations will begin in Triple-A. Time between pitches will now be 17 seconds with both the bases empty (previously 14 seconds) and with runners on base (previously 19 seconds). For pitchers on Major League Rehab Assignment, they will continue to receive 15 seconds with the bases empty and 20 seconds with runners on base. After batters are granted time, the home plate umpire will immediately signal for the timer to be reset to 17 seconds. Following a dead ball, the pitcher no longer needs to be on the pitcher's mound once he has possession of the ball for the timer to start. He just needs to be "proximate" to the mound. Other criteria remain the same for the start of the timer following a dead ball...The number of a team's mound visits without a pitching change will be reduced from five to four...In addition to these changes, a different method will be used to set up the ABS strike zone using data from Hawk-Eye's pose tracking system to account for different batting stances rather than calculating the top and bottom strike zone boundaries using a percentage of the batter's height.

Around the Horn: The Dodgers enter tonight having lost five straight series openers. Before that, they had won 12 of the 14 previous series openers...Miguel Vargas hit his second homer in the last six games in the eighth inning Sunday and finished with a game-high three hits, going 3-for-4 with two RBI, a walk and two runs scored. Over his last 18 games, Vargas is 25-for-64 (.391) with 11 RBI and 15 walks...David Dahl has hit safely in six straight games, going 6-for-22 with three doubles. Since joining OKC June 20, his 18 doubles lead the league....Reliever Jimmy Nelson has not allowed a run in seven straight appearances. Since Aug. 4, Nelson has thrown 7.0 scoreless innings with three hits, four walks and 12 strikeouts, holding opponents 3-for-23.

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