For nine innings Sunday at ONEOK Field, Wichita kept repairing the damage. The Wind Surge answered one deficit, survived five errors, erased another in the ninth and finally broke the game open in the 10th, when six runs turned a long afternoon of recovery into a 13-7 victory over the Tulsa Drillers.
The outburst ended Wichita’s franchise-record 10-game losing streak. It also provided a fitting finish for a club that collected 17 hits and had been chasing Tulsa since the middle innings.
With automatic runner Kyle DeBarge aboard in the 10th, Graham Brown drew a one-out walk against Cam Day. Danny De Andrade followed with a ground-ball single through the middle, scoring both runners and giving Wichita a 9-7 lead.
That was the breakthrough. The Wind Surge did not stop there.
After Marek Houston walked, Caden Kendle singled to center to bring De Andrade home. Khadim Diaw greeted Christian Suarez with an RBI double to right, Brandon Winokur brought in another run on a groundout and Andrew Cossetti lined an RBI double to right for the sixth run of the inning.
De Andrade finished 4-for-5 with two RBIs and a run scored. Kendle went 2-for-5 with two RBIs and a run, while Houston reached four times, going 2-for-4 with two walks and three RBIs.
The late barrage seemed a long way off when Wichita’s defense repeatedly gave Tulsa openings. The Wind Surge took a 2-0 lead in the third, only for the Drillers to answer with three runs in the bottom half after an error began the inning.
Wichita responded immediately. DeBarge drove a ball toward the warning track in right-center and off the wall for a one-out double in the fourth. Luis Hernandez followed with an infield single, and Brown lined a tying single to right. De Andrade loaded the bases before Houston delivered a two-run single to center, though he was thrown out trying to advance to second.
The 5-3 advantage did not survive the bottom of the inning. An error put Tulsa’s leadoff batter aboard, and Taylor Young’s ground ball to third brought home two runs when De Andrade’s throw got away. Josue De Paula followed with a ground-ball single to left, and another Wichita error allowed Young to score. Griffin Lockwood-Powell’s sacrifice fly completed a four-run inning and put the Drillers ahead 7-5.
Brown kept the Wind Surge close in the sixth, sending a solo homer to right-center for his fourth of the season. He finished 2-for-3 with two walks and two RBIs, having supplied both the tying hit in the fourth and the swing that cut the later deficit to one.
While Wichita worked its way back, the bullpen stopped the game from getting farther away. Chris Vallimont took over in the fifth and worked four scoreless innings, striking out three and walking two. He navigated traffic in the fifth, sixth and eighth, then retired Tulsa in order in the seventh.
The Wind Surge pulled even with a run in the ninth, though a bases-loaded opportunity ended without further damage. Kyle Bischoff then kept Tulsa off the board in the bottom half and earned the win, improving to 4-4.
Wichita’s bullpen allowed no earned runs over the final six innings. Jaylen Nowlin handled the last of them, working around a walk and a hit batter in the 10th before De Andrade started a game-ending double play.
For much of the afternoon, every Wichita answer had created another problem to solve. In the 10th, the Wind Surge supplied an answer Tulsa could not match.