Jake Gelof had already driven in Tulsa’s first two runs by the time the Drillers stopped asking for a little offense and started launching baseballs around ONEOK Field.
Gelof and Kole Myers turned a one-run game into something far louder Thursday night, combining for four home runs across three innings as Tulsa beat Wichita 8-2. Gelof went 3-for-3 with two homers, five RBIs and two runs, moving within one homer of Tim Wheeler’s franchise single-season record. Myers added two homers of his own, his eighth and ninth of the season, and drove in three.
The Drillers improved to 81-48, extending their franchise-record win total, but the night carried a more immediate shape than another line in the standings. Wichita kept putting runners on base, finishing with 12 hits, yet Tulsa kept landing the swings that changed the scoreboard.
Aidan Foeller gave the Drillers enough room to wait for those swings. He allowed one earned run over five innings, struck out seven and walked two, working around traffic in the third and fourth before Khadim Diaw finally got Wichita on the board with a fifth-inning homer to right.
That made it 2-1. It also was about as close as the Wind Surge would get.
Myers opened the bottom of the fifth against Hunter Gregory by sending a fly ball to left that carried toward the corner and tucked just inside the foul pole. Two batters later, after Mike Sirota singled, Gelof drove a line drive to left-center that got out in a hurry. A game that had been tight for four and a half innings was suddenly 5-1.
The burst did not come from nowhere. Tulsa had forced Wichita to chase early, even while Cory Lewis was piling up strikeouts. Josue De Paula reached on an error in the first, Sirota followed with a double, and Gelof lifted a sacrifice fly to center to bring in the game’s first run. Garrett Spain’s catch kept it from becoming something bigger, but it also started Gelof’s RBI count.
In the third, Sean McLain doubled to right-center, De Paula walked, and Gelof dropped a run-scoring single into right to make it 2-0. Lewis held the rest of the damage there, striking out six over four innings and allowing just one earned run, but the Drillers had already made the middle of their order the center of the game.
Then the power arrived.
Myers’ second homer came in the sixth off Sam Armstrong, after McLain was hit by a pitch. Spain ran back toward deep center, but Myers’ high drive cleared him and pushed Tulsa’s lead to 7-1. In the seventh, Gelof added his 32nd homer of the season, a fly ball to left that put him in a tie for second on Tulsa’s single-season list, one behind Wheeler’s 33.
That final Gelof swing capped his five-RBI night and gave the Drillers eight runs on nine hits. It also gave Tulsa the sort of top-order thunder that can make a long box score feel simple: Myers started it, Sirota helped set it up, and Gelof kept cashing it in.
Wichita’s offense was not quiet. Diaw went 3-for-5 with his third homer of the season, Brandon Winokur had three hits, and Caden Kendle added two. The Wind Surge loaded the bases in the third with one out, but Foeller got Winokur to ground into an inning-ending double play. They put two more aboard in the fourth, and Foeller answered with two strikeouts around a flyout to strand them.
After Diaw’s homer and two more Wichita singles in the fifth, Foeller struck out Spain to leave the inning with Tulsa still in front. Carson Hobbs followed with a scoreless sixth, striking out two. Jacob Kmatz allowed Wichita’s only late run in the eighth on Kyle DeBarge’s RBI single, and Evan Shaw finished the ninth with a scoreless inning.
The Wind Surge left 10 runners on base. Tulsa left with another win, another franchise marker, and Gelof one swing away from the top of the club’s home run list.