Bobby Miller strikes out 14 in outstanding effort for Oklahoma City

The Dodgers have seen flashes of brilliance from their most intriguing pitching prospect this season and on Thursday night, Bobby Miller showed out for the best start of his career to this point.

The right-hander struck out a whopping 14 of the 21 batters he faced in six innings, giving up just two hits and a walk in the process. Miller was so locked in at the end of his outing that he struck out the final eight hitters of his night.

“I can’t really put it into words,” he told Michael Avallone of MiLB. “When something like that happens, you’re so zoned in on your job that nothing else around you is even noticeable. Add in the fact it’s a close game and it just ratchets things up. I give [catcher] Tony Wolters a lot of credit. It was my first time throwing to him and he was great. He knew exactly what to call and when to call it.”

Miller has now struck out 24 and walked just three in his first three starts with OKC after being promoted August 16. Unfortunately, the only walk issued Thursday would lead to a two-run homer for Sandro Fabian, providing the only score of the game when he turned on a fastball and snuck it inside the foul pole down the left field line.

Triple-A Oklahoma City

Despite striking out three in the inning, Miller gave up the two-run homer with two outs after walking the leadoff man in the second inning. The game was called after the sixth inning due to rain and Oklahoma City didn’t fully get the chance to climb out from the deficit, falling 2-0 to Round Rock (Rangers).

OKC had two runners on in three different innings, including the top of the seventh that wouldn’t be finished. There were runners on second and third with two outs when the game was called.

The only multi-hit effort of the night for the Dodgers came from James Outman as he stayed hot with a pair of singles in three at-bats. The second of his two hits was the best chance OKC had of scoring but Michael Busch was thrown out trying to score from second.

Double-A Tulsa

High-A Great Lakes

It was a wild extra-inning affair Thursday that saw the road team score three runs in the 10th without hardly lifting the bat off their shoulders. Two wild pitches allowed all three of those runs for Lake County (Guardians) as Great Lakes fell 8-5.

After a walk and single quickly loaded the bases in the extra frame, Reinaldo De Paula uncorked the first wild throw to bring that placed runner in with the go-ahead run. The Loons would bring in Joan Valdez with two outs and runners still on second and third.

Valdez intentionally walked the first batter he faced to load the bases before tossing a wild pitch of his own that amazingly scored two runners. The Loons had no answer in the bottom half of the inning.

Great Lakes had early leads of 2-0 and 3-1 before the Captains scored three in the sixth to take their first lead of the game. The Loons scored in the bottom half and the two clubs traded runs in the seventh.

Top prospect Diego Cartaya was hitless in three at-bats but did walk twice and scored a run while bringing in two runs on ground outs in each of the third and seventh innings.

Second baseman Jorbit Vivas had two more hits to give him 124 on the year, just five short of his total a year ago.

Reliever Ben Harris continued his scoreless streak out of the bullpen for the Loons. Though he gave up a double in the eighth Thursday, the lefty hadn’t allowed a hit in his previous 14 games and still hasn’t allowed a run in his last 20 innings of work.

Drafted in the eighth round last year, Harris has been great since the Dodgers promoted him to High-A towards the end of June, giving up two runs in 19 games to go 2-0 with a 0.75 ERA while striking out 39 against 11 walks.

Low-A Rancho Cucamonga

Despite the leadoff hitter reaching in five of the nine innings and having multiple runners on in three of those, Rancho couldn’t push a run across until the eighth inning. By that time it was way too late to attempt a comeback as they were already being run out of town with a 9-1 loss on the road in downtown San Bernardino to the Inland Empire 66ers (Angels).

Seven of the nine starters for the Quakes had at least one hit, including two for Bubba Alleyne. But they were 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position as a team and Inland Empire scored at least one run in six of the first seven frames.

It didn’t lead to many unearned runs but Rancho committed four errors to round out the night. The two teams will be back at it over the weekend as Rancho’s playoff hopes are on life support. Thursday’s loss drops them six back with nine games to go.

Transactions

Triple-A: The signed RHP Keone Kela Wednesday and assigned him to Oklahoma City Thursday. Kela had been in the Diamondbacks organization this season but was released Wednesday.

Thursday scores

• Round Rock 2, Oklahoma City 0 (F/6)
• Tulsa vs. Northwest Arkansas (postponed)
• Lake County 8, Great Lakes 5 (10 innings)
• Inland Empire 9, Rancho Cucamonga 1

Friday Schedule

• 2:30 p.m. PT: Tulsa (Landon Knack) vs. Northwest Arkansas (T.J. Sikkema)
• Game 2: Tulsa (John Rooney) vs. Northwest Arkansas (Andrew Hoffmann)
• 4:05 p.m.: Great Lakes (River Ryan) vs. Lake County (Will Dion)
• 4:35 p.m.: Oklahoma City (Aaron Ochsenbein) at Round Rock (TBD)
• 7:05 p.m.: Rancho Cucamonga (Chris Campos) at Inland Empire (Michael Lorenzen)

**Those are the Tulsa vs. Northwest Arkansas pitchers but we’re not sure who is pitching which game**