Zach McKinstry drives in two runs as Oklahoma City wins final game of the season

Zach McKinstry drove in a pair of runs Sunday as Oklahoma City ended their season with a 4-1 victory over El Paso (Padres), going 6-4 over the Triple-A Final Stretch.

Oklahoma City finished the year 67-62, finishing above .500 for the fifth time in six years since being affiliated with the major league Dodgers.

In a scoreless tie heading into the fifth, OKC took advantage of a throwing error by Chihuahuas’ catcher Michael Cantu to bring Drew Avans home from third. McKinstry would later single in a run to give the Dodgers a 2-0 lead.

El Paso got a run back in the sixth with an Ivan Castillo RBI-single to cut the lead to one but that would be as close as the Chihuahuas would get.

Avans (sixth) and McKinstry (seventh) added a sacrifice fly each in the sixth and seventh innings to pad the lead in support of Yefry Ramírez. The Dodger right-hander tossed seven solid innings, striking out 10 and scattering four hits and walk.

James Pazos and Kevin Quackenbush pitched an inning each to close out the win, giving Quackenbush his 23rd save of the year.

Notes from OKC

• Ramírez finished with a season-high 10 strikeouts Sunday, tying for the most strikeouts by an OKC pitcher this season. Josiah Gray notched 10 K’s in the team’s season opener May 6 in Round Rock and Ramírez matched that total in Sunday’s season finale as he fell one strikeout shy of his career-high of 11 K’s (June 30, 2016 vs. LAK).
• Ramírez retired 17 of the first 18 batters he faced Sunday, including a run of 13 straight between the second and sixth innings.
• OKC recorded a season-high four stolen bases Sunday, including the 19th of the season by Avans. Prior to Sunday, the team’s highest single-game total for stolen bases this season was three, achieved Aug. 17 against Round Rock in OKC.
• OKC’s pitching staff tallied 13 strikeouts Sunday for the team’s fifth straight double-digit strikeout game. The Dodgers racked up 1,267 strikeouts this season for the third-most strikeouts in a season during the team’s Bricktown era behind the 2019 (1,287) and 2017 (1,277) squads.
• Hamlet Marte finished with a team-high two hits Sunday, going 2-for-3 with a double and scoring two runs in his fifth multi-hit game of the season.

Sunday’s boxscore

Oklahoma City 4, El Paso 1