An 8-run first Inning helps the Miners take down the Chinooks

PALMER - Twelve Mat-Su batters came to the plate in the bottom of the first inning on Tuesday night. It was truly a spectacle.

Chugiak tossed out lefty Noah Tincher to start the game. In three previous appearances, he had an over 21.00 ERA and a WHIP of nearly 4.00. Perhaps those numbers were foreshadowing what was to come.

Kaleb Hannahs (with Nolan Tucker getting the day off) led off the inning with a walk. Two batters later center fielder Alex Vergara reached on an infield hit. Hannahs got to third on the slow roller to second base.

With catcher Steven Lancia at the dish, Tincher did something that hasn’t happened to the Miners yet all season: he balked. Hannahs, thus, was awarded home plate.

Lancia would line a single to left field to make it 2-0. Then left fielder Maddox Haley got hit by a pitch – the first time that’s happened to him this season.

Right fielder Kaden Carpenter worked a walk. With it, he tied Chugiak catcher Austin Young for the most in the ABL. With the bases re-loaded and the score 2-0, designated hitter Landon Rogers also walked. So it was 3-0.

Two batters later, second baseman Alex Thurston – playing for the first time in six days – also walked to make it 4-0. Thurston, by the way, reached base in all four plate appearances on Thursday. He drew three walks and had a single.

Hannahs tacked on two more runs with a shallow double to left-center field. Then first baseman Cooper Vest whistled a two-run single. The game was 8-0 at that point, and it was only then that Tincher’s day was done. He didn’t make it out of the first inning.

The Chinooks, to their credit, kept chipping away. They made things interesting on a three-run double in the 6th inning from Young. That play cut the deficit in half, from 8-2 to 8-5.

Chugiak cut it to two runs with a mini rally in the 7th, but they wouldn’t score again. Mat-Su lefty Ethan Lyke shut the door in the 8th and 9th frames.

Five Miners reached base in the bottom of the 8th. That included an RBI double from Vest and an RBI walk from Carpenter.

The game ended with Chinooks shortstop Tommy Rover grounding into a 4-6-3 double play for the second time in the same game. After the game, Lyke said that was already “walking off the mound” when the chopper to Thurston happened because of the trust that he has in his teammates.

The win boosts the Miners to 14-11. They host the Bucs on Wednesday night with a chance to reclaim first place in the ABL.