Ward sets hits record as Comets crush Chihuahuas with four homers

Ryan Ward’s sixth-inning RBI single gave Oklahoma City a 9-2 win over the El Paso Chihuahuas on Wednesday night at Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark and moved him past Drew Avans for the Bricktown-era career hits record.

The milestone hit, Ward’s 463rd in a Comets uniform, fit the shape of a night that kept underscoring his place in the club’s modern history. Ward already owns the Bricktown-era marks for home runs, with 97, and RBI, with 354, and he entered the game as a player whose 2025 Pacific Coast League MVP season included league-leading totals of 36 homers and 122 RBI. Since debuting with Oklahoma City in 2023, he has led Pacific Coast League hitters in hits, homers, RBI and runs scored.

Oklahoma City, which improved to 48-40, did not rely on Ward alone. Alek Thomas opened the scoring with an opposite-field solo homer in the first inning and later added another home run in the eighth, finishing 3-for-4 with a double, two RBI, a walk and a stolen base. Zach Ehrhard turned in the night’s most unusual swing, reaching on an inside-the-park home run in the second inning that brought in two runs, then adding an RBI single to finish with a game-high three RBI and a stolen base. Matt Gorski chipped in a sacrifice fly in the third, and Noah Miller added a two-run homer in the seventh as the Comets kept building long after the game had tilted.

Ehrhard’s blast was his second inside-the-park homer of the season, matching the kind of rare speed-and-pressure play that had already made him notable when he hit an inside-the-park grand slam on April 14 at Albuquerque. His two inside-the-park homers in the same season made him the first Oklahoma City hitter to do that since George Springer in 2013.

Cole Irvin handled the rest. The Oklahoma City starter earned the win by allowing one earned run over six innings, while Evan Wolf took the loss for El Paso, which dropped to 41-48. The Chihuahuas scratched out their runs on a two-out single by rehabbing Freddy Fermin in the fifth, a run-scoring error in the sixth and a Romeo Sanabria ground ball that slipped past third baseman Noah Miller. Carlos Rodríguez had reached base in 40 of his last 41 games, and the Comets’ offense left little room for a comeback in front of an announced crowd of 3,265. The game lasted 2 hours, 40 minutes, and the teams split the first two games of the series.