LET’S PLAY TWO! Miners will host 4 doubleheaders during homestand

PALMER — The Mat-Su Miners will be channeling former Chicago Cubs great Ernie Banks during the final stretch of the regular season.

Let’s play two!

Ernie’s famous line will be Mat-Su’s reality with four doubleheaders scheduled during the final 10 days of the regular season. The doubleheaders are a product of the need to make up four games rained out earlier in the year. The stretch starts with a pair against the Peninsula Oilers Sunday at 4 p.m. The Miners will host the Anchorage Bucs for two Wednesday, and doubleheaders against the Anchorage Glacier Pilots on Thursday and Aug. 1, the final day of the regular season.

The games make what was already a busy end to the regular season even busier. The Miners will play a dozen games during an 11-day stretch.

Mat-Su head coach Ben Taylor said the Miners are not fixated on the number of games during the final 11 days of the regular season.

“It is what it is. You just have to get after it,” Taylor said Friday.

Instead, the Miners are focused on keeping their spot at the top of the Alaska Baseball League. As of Friday, first-place Mat-Su (20-12) held a three-game lead over the second-place Anchorage Bucs.

“We’re right where we want to be,” Taylor said.

While four doubleheaders in 10 days is a lot of baseball, Taylor said a key thing to remember is doubleheaders in the ABL include only seven-inning games, not the traditional nine-inning contest. Before the rainouts, the original schedule featured eight games in 11 days.

Even with the additional games, Taylor said the Mat-Su Miners will not have to venture too far off script with the game plan and projected use of the pitching staff during the final stretch.

“A little bit of reshuffling, but not a ton, which is good,” Taylor said.

Taylor said the Miners are not only taking the final 11 games of the regular season into consideration, but also the ABL postseason, which starts Aug. 2.

“We want to keep everybody lined up for early August,” Taylor said. “Luckily for us, the pitching side of it, it didn’t affect us massively.”

Taylor said every pitcher on the staff will be asked to provide quality innings.

“It’s all hands on deck,” Taylor said. “But that’s how the final two weeks are anyway.”

Taylor said the Miners will also rotate enough in the field to keep everyone fresh for the final stretch of the regular season and the postseason.

The final homestand started with a game against the Chugiak-Eagle River Chinooks Saturday night at Hermon Brothers. It marked the first time the Miners took the field in a week, and its first league game in nine days. The Miners played in the ABL/MLB Scouts Showcase July 14 and 15, and the ABL All-Star Game and Home Run Derby was July 16. The Miners had games scheduled against the Pilots July 18 and 19 in Anchorage, but both games were rained out.

Taylor was more concerned about the days off, than additional games.

“I don’t like days off period,” Taylor said. “I would rather be able to give players a day off at my discretion.”

But the Miners adapted.

“We had an old school full-on long practice two days ago, a light workout yesterday and pregame today,” Taylor said.

Contact Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman sports editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@frontiersman.com.