Comets pull away late, rout Knights 10-1 on road

The Oklahoma City Comets are making road trips look routine. They stretched their road winning streak to six Wednesday, turning a close game into a 10-1 rout of the Charlotte Knights at Truist Field behind a late offensive surge and a season-high strikeout total from the pitching staff.

The game began at 11:08 a.m. before 4,002 fans in Charlotte, N.C., and stayed tight through four innings. Oklahoma City, which entered at 37-27, broke it open in the fifth when a double steal and a Charlotte throwing error led to two unearned runs. The Knights answered with one run in the bottom of the inning, but that was the last pressure they put on the visitors. The Comets were 11-1 in their last 12 road games after the win and matched their season high by moving to 10 games over .500.

The decisive damage came in the sixth. James Tibbs III singled in a run, Jack Suwinski followed with a two-run homer and Hyeseong Kim capped the inning with a two-run double as Oklahoma City scored five times in the frame. Suwinski finished 3-for-4 with two RBI, a walk and a stolen base, giving him back-to-back three-hit games and a 10-for-15 stretch over his last four contests with five extra-base hits. The Comets added another run on a balk to make it 8-1, then tacked on two more in the ninth on Ryan Fitzgerald’s two-out single.

Oklahoma City’s pitchers overwhelmed Charlotte throughout the afternoon, combining for a season-high 16 strikeouts. River Ryan, the Charlotte native and Providence Day alum, worked 4.0 innings and allowed one earned run with seven strikeouts. Evan Phillips, on a Major League rehab assignment with the Comets, threw a scoreless sixth inning, while Tommy Edman was also with Oklahoma City on rehab during the homestand.

Charlotte stranded 16 runners despite collecting 10 hits, five walks and two hit batters, a blunt measure of how often the Knights put traffic on the bases without cashing in. The loss came against a Comets team that had already won the series opener and, for the first time since late July 2025 in Reno, opened a road series with a 2-0 lead. Oklahoma City had 30 strikeouts through the first two games of the set, a clear sign that this was not just a hot streak, but a road identity taking hold.