Dobnak sparks Tacoma's 4-1 win over Sugar Land with strong start
Dobnak’s 5.1 one-run innings and Tacoma’s first-inning blitz put Sugar Land away early, and the Rainiers kept the standings pressure on.
Randy Dobnak gave Tacoma exactly the kind of start that changes a series: 5.1 innings of one-run baseball, a steady stream of ground balls and enough control to let the Rainiers play from ahead all night. Tacoma beat Sugar Land 4-1 at Cheney Stadium on May 15, a third straight win that pushed the Rainiers to 21-22 and kept the pressure on in the Pacific Coast League race.
Dobnak’s most striking number was not the earned run. It was the 11 ground-ball outs he piled up, tying the most by a Triple-A pitcher in a game this season. It was the second time Dobnak had reached 11 ground-ball outs in a game this year, making him the only Triple-A pitcher to do it twice. For a pitcher trying to reestablish himself as a credible depth option, that kind of outing matters. It was efficient, repeatable and built on contact management, not survival.
Tacoma made that easier in the first inning by scoring all four of its runs before Sugar Land could settle in. Brock Rodden opened with an eight-pitch walk, Colt Emerson followed with a double to right that scored Rodden, and Patrick Wisdom then ripped a triple deep to left-center for his first triple of the 2026 season and the 24th triple of his career. Ryan Bliss capped the burst with a sacrifice fly, and Tacoma was never forced to chase the game. Emerson’s double and Wisdom’s triple made Tacoma just the fifth Triple-A team to hit a double and triple in the first inning of a game this season.
Sugar Land finally cracked the scoreboard in the sixth when Collin Price homered, but that only trimmed Tacoma’s lead to 3-1. Rodden answered in the seventh with his sixth home run of the season, restoring the two-run cushion and giving the Rainiers a little more breathing room. The bullpen handled the rest: Nick Garcia worked through traffic, Michael Rucker bridged the late innings, and Cole Wilcox picked up his second save of the season as Tacoma retired the final eight hitters in order.
The Rainiers’ top of the order did the damage again, with Rodden, Emerson and Bliss scoring all four runs. Tacoma has now scored in the first inning in all four games of the Sugar Land series, piling up eight first-inning runs in that stretch. The game lasted 2 hours, 23 minutes in rainy 48-degree weather before 6,244 fans, and it fit Tacoma’s current formula perfectly: take an early lead, let the starter control the shape of the game and force the opponent to play catch-up.
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