San Diego Padres: San Antonio Missions Fall In Texas League Championship

The San Antonio Missions (San Diego Padres AA affiliate) dropped their final Texas League game to the Tulsa Drillers.

Heartbreak in Texas. The San Antonio Missions closed out their affiliation with the Texas League, and their AA affiliation with the San Diego Padres, with a loss on Friday evening to the Tulsa Drillers. Tulsa’s win completed the Texas League Championship series sweep, giving the Drillers their first league title in 20 years.

San Antonio returned home down 2-0 in the best-of-five series, finding themselves in the exact same situation as they found themselves in the semi-finals against the Corpus Christi Hooks. Unfortunately, the result was quite the opposite.

Jesse Scholtens (7-4, 3.00 ERA in the regular season) was given the ball in Friday night’s win-or-go-home battle. His final line was fairly solid, giving up just two earned runs (three total) on six hits, striking out seven and walking just one. While his offense matched Tulsa’s in total hits (10), the San Antonio lineup was unable to bring in runners and come back from an early 2-0 Tulsa lead.

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The top five hitters in the San Antonio lineup (Buddy Reed, Owen Miller, Josh Naylor, Kyle Overstreet, Austin Allen) went a combined 3-20 with five strikeouts. Hudson Potts and Michael Gettys lead the way with two hits each and second baseman Peter Van Gansen hit his ninth career MiLB home run, a solo shot in the fifth inning off Dustin May.

May, one of the top pitching prospects in the Los Angeles Dodgers’ system, completed a fantastic season by earning the series-clinching victory and striking out three in his final appearance.

With their loss, the San Antonio Missions end their long run as a Double-A program, as the team will move up a level to compete in the Pacific Coast League at the Triple-A level. They finished the season with a 71-67 overall record, the third-highest winning percentage in the Texas League, behind the two teams they faced off against in the playoffs, Corpus Christi and Tulsa.

We will announce our San Antonio Missions hitter and pitcher of the year awards in the upcoming days. Our winners from the Tri-City Dust Devils were announced yesterday. Today, we will unveil our Fort Wayne TinCaps award winners.