Chris Taylor, Dustin May lead Oklahoma City to victory

The Dodgers have a long list of players on the injured list at the moment. Several are currently with Oklahoma City and Wednesday showed they’re getting healthy.

Triple-A Oklahoma City

Chris Taylor homered twice and Dustin May tossed four more solid innings to lead Oklahoma City to a 6-1 victory over Salt Lake (Angels).

The first homer for Taylor came on the very first pitch of the game to deep center. He would later go the opposite way for a two-run homer in the seventh inning to the right of center. Taylor finished his second game with OKC going 3-for-4 at the plate while playing second and third base.

Dustin May made his fourth start (third with OKC) in his way back from the Tommy John surgery that ended his 2021 campaign. The right-hander showed he is getting stronger, striking out six over four innings while allowing just one run on two hits and a walk.

May retired the first eight hitters he faced Wednesday and 11 of the first 12 before allowing a triple when outfielder Jason Martin couldn’t come up with a diving catch. Chad Wallach (son of Tim) followed with a bloop single to bring in the run but May struck out the final batter he faced to end the frame.

Continuing the theme of rehabbing big leaguers, Edwin Ríos followed Taylor’s first inning homer with a double on the first pitch he saw. Michael Busch would bring him around with a single to right three pitches later. Ríos finished 1-for-5 with an RBI-groundout in the second.

The OKC bullpen nailed down five innings of scoreless relief from five different pitchers, including Pedro Báez with a 1-2-3 sixth inning for his second straight scoreless appearance.

Center fielder Drew Avans bunted for a single in the seventh inning to extend his on-base streak to 40 games, the longest for a Pacific Coast League player since 2018. Avans has also reached base in 54 of his last 55 games and hit safely in 23 of the last 27 games.

Double-A Tulsa

Northwest Arkansas (Royals) sent 10 men to the plate in the third inning against Bobby Miller, six scored to put Tulsa at a deficit they couldn’t recover from, dropping the contest by the score of 6-4.

After the first two runners reached on an error and a single, Tyler Gentry took Miller deep for a three-run homer. The next batter struck out but a walk led to a runner on third when Carson Taylor made a throwing error on a stolen base attempt. Another single and a CJ Alexander two-run shot knocked Miller from the game with six runs (five earned) on his ledger.

Miller’s ERA has ballooned to 4.87 on the season after being touched up for at least five runs in three of his last six starts.

The Drillers scored a pair in the fifth and Ryan Ward’s 26th homer of the year, a two-run blast in the eighth, brought Tulsa within two runs. A pair of walks in the ninth brought the winning run to the plate but Leonel Valera made out on a fly ball to right to end it.

Cole Percival, son of former major league closer Troy Percival, made his Double-A debut with the Drillers Wednesday. Percival took over for Miller in the third and pitched 1 ²⁄₃ scoreless while giving up a hit and two walks while striking out one.

High-A Great Lakes

Great Lakes used five home runs Wednesday to pummel Lake County (Guardians) 14-4 on the road in Ohio.

Eddys Leonard pulled a Chris Taylor and hit the first pitch of the game out to left field to immediately put his team on the board. Aldrich De Jongh hit a two-run shot during a four-run second to give the Loons a 5-0 advantage. Jose Ramos would hit a solo shot of his own in the third to push the lead to 6-0 before Lake County scored three in the fourth to cut the lead in half.

Luis Diaz hit a two-run homer in the fifth and after Great Lakes scored one in the seventh on a fielding error, Jorbit Vivas put the game out of reach with a grand slam. Vivas finished his night 3-for-6 with the four RBI.

One side note on the hitting, designated hitter Harold Restituyo reached base five times on three singles and two walks. Restituyo came around to score three times and stole a base for good measure.

Emmet Sheehan pitched well again for the Loons, giving up four runs but only being charged with two. The right-hander struck out eight with no walks on six hits.

Low-A Rancho Cucamonga

The Quakes jumped out to a 4-1 lead before Inland Empire (Angels) scored 11 unanswered runs to hand Rancho a 12-4 drubbing.

After both teams scored a run on the first, it looked like Rancho had taken control of the game when they scored three runs in the second. Luis Rodriguez hit a leadoff homer in the third and an error with the bases loaded later in the inning led to two more.

Like waves on a beach, Inland Empire scored one in the fourth, two in each of the fifth and sixth innings, while putting up three runs in each of the seventh and eighth. When the dust had settled, the 66ers had tripled the Loons score.

Transactions

Double-A: Pitcher Lael Lockhart assigned to Tulsa Drillers from Great Lakes Loons.

High-A: SS Austin Gauthier and OF Damon Keith assigned to Great Lakes Loons from Rancho Cucamonga Quakes.

Low-A: Rancho Cucamonga Quakes transferred RHP Jonathan Edwards to the Development List and activated RHP Huei-Sheng Lin. OF Chris Alleyne and 2B Taylor Young assigned to Rancho Cucamonga Quakes from ACL Dodgers.

Wednesday scores

• Oklahoma City 6, Salt Lake 1
• NW Arkansas 6, Tulsa 4
• Great Lakes 14, Lake County 4
• Inland Empire 12, Rancho Cucamonga 4

Thursday schedule

• 4:00 p.m. PT: Great Lakes (Nick Nastrini) at Lake County (Aaron Davenport)
• 5:05 p.m.: Tulsa (TBA) at NW Arkansas (Jonathan Bowlan)
• 5:35 p.m.: Oklahoma City (Jon Duplantier) at Salt Lake (Ryan Smith)
• 6:30 p.m.: Rancho Cucamonga (Gabe Emmett) vs. Inland Empire (Fernando Guanare)