Oklahoma City routs Albuquerque 17-1 behind nine-run fifth inning

One crooked inning turned a road game into a statement about how dangerous the Oklahoma City Comets can be when the lineup keeps turning over. Oklahoma City buried Albuquerque 17-1 Friday night at Rio Grande Credit Union Field at Isotopes Park in Albuquerque, N.M., piling up season highs with 17 runs, 19 hits and 12 walks before a nine-run fifth inning made the rest of the night feel academic.

The Comets set the tone early and never let the Isotopes recover. Ryan Fitzgerald opened the scoring with an RBI groundout in the first, Jack Suwinski followed with an RBI single in the same inning, and Tyler Fitzgerald added a homer in the third. Zach Ehrhard and James Tibbs III supplied RBI singles in the second, while Noah Miller later added a two-run double as Oklahoma City kept stacking traffic and pressure on Albuquerque’s pitching.

Then came the fifth, the inning that changed everything downstream. Oklahoma City sent hitter after hitter to the plate and scored nine runs, with Alex Freeland and Suwinski both going deep in the frame. Freeland finished 3-for-5 with five RBIs and produced two hits and four RBIs in the fifth alone, including his first homer since being optioned to Oklahoma City. His night was the clearest sign that the Comets were not just collecting empty hits, but converting them into a full-scale collapse for the home club.

The supporting cast was just as loud. James Tibbs III went 3-for-5 with a triple, two RBIs and two walks, and became the second Comet to score four times in a game, joining Hyeseong Kim from March 28 against Albuquerque. Kiké Hernández went 3-for-4 with an RBI and two walks during his Major League rehab assignment, lifting his line to 5 hits in 19 at-bats with one double and one RBI in six games with Oklahoma City. Eliezer Alfonzo reached base three times, and all nine hitters in the starting lineup recorded at least one hit and scored at least one run.

The win mattered as much as the box score. Oklahoma City had dropped the first two games of the series, then answered with back-to-back blowouts to even the six-game set at 2-2 and climb to 22-20, matching its season high at two games above .500. The 16-run margin was the Comets’ largest since a 16-0 win at Sacramento on June 25, 2025. Over the last two games, Oklahoma City scored 29 runs and collected 37 hits, the kind of burst that signals real lineup length rather than a fleeting hot streak.