Miners bats silent in first loss of year

PALMER — Mat-Su Miners head coach Conor Bird isn’t worried about his team's slow start at the plate, despite watching his team pick up just three hits in Friday evening's 2-0 Alaska Baseball League loss to the Peninsula Oilers at Hermon Brothers Field.

“I just think there’s a little bit of an adjustment period,” Bird said following the team’s first loss of the season.

The Miners are hitting .208 as a team, and managed just 13 hits in 27 innings in two games against the Oilers. Bird said he thinks his hitters are still getting used to swinging the ABL's wooden bats, which are heavier and have less pop than the aluminum bats used at the college level. But with just seven games under their belt, Bird said he thinks the Miners will eventually come around.

“We have some guys on this team who can swing the bat,” he said.

Mat-Su fell to 2-1 in the ABL with the loss and 6-1 overall. The Oilers improved to 1-1 in the ABL and 10-1 overall.

The sluggish hitting has been masked by the team's pitching staff, which has been dominant. Through the season’s first seven games, Mat-Su pitchers have a sparkling 1.12 ERA and have held opposing batters to a .141 average. The Miners have 62 strikeouts in 72 innings and have walked just 14 batters.

“They’ve been outstanding,” Bird said. “You can’t ask them to do anything more.”

As has become their custom in the early season, the Miners got another strong pitching and defensive performance in Friday's loss, but couldn't do much of anything at the plate. No Mat-Su baserunner advanced past second base, and infielder Blake Newalu's double in the third inning was the team's only extra-base hit.

Earlier this week, Miners starter Jeremy Erben took a no-hitter into the ninth inning, finishing with a complete-game, one-hit shutout in his first appearance of the year. But any thoughts of another no-hit bid ended quickly Friday night, as Oilers leadoff hitter Ryan McCurdy singled to start the game. Erben settled down after that, inducing routine ground balls from the next three Peninsula hitters.

Erben got some help from his defense in the third inning, when second baseman John Shaffer made an acrobatic play behind second base. In one slick motion, Shaffer made a backhanded grab of Anthony Aliotti's slow ground ball up the middle, then quickly spun and fired the ball from deep in the hole to get Aliotti by a half-step at first.

The Oilers finally got to Erben in the top of the fifth, picking up an RBI triple by Trey Dennis after Will Currier reached on an error by third baseman Jordin Hood. Dennis then came in to score on McCurdy's third single of the game, staking the Oilers to a 2-0 lead.

“If you make an error or walk a guy, you're giving the other team another opportunity to hit, and that's what happened,” Bird said.

Erben gave up four hits in six innings to take the loss despite allowing just one earned run — the only one he’s allowed in 15 innings of work this season. Oilers starter Joe Gardner went six innings to get the win.

Mat-Su got back-to-back one-out singles from Steve Domecus and Troy Scott in the bottom of the fifth, but Gardner ended the threat by getting D.J. Gentile and Blake Newalu to fly out.

The Miners also got two runners on with one out in the sixth, but once again Gardner was able to bear down and retire the side with no damage done, getting a nice running catch by right fielder Jeremy Gould on a slicing line drive by Wes Dorrell to end the threat.

Newalu and Ty Rasmussen each turned in defensive gems in the top of the eighth, with Rasmusson sliding in left field to take a hit away from Francis Larson and Newalu leaping from his third base position to grab Belnome’s bases-loaded line drive.

But the Miners couldn't scratch any runs across as Seth Harvey pitched a perfect ninth to notch the save.

Despite his team's early offensive woes, Bird said he's pleased with the Miners' 6-1 start.

“That's not a bad place to start.”

The Miners will try to get the bats going today when they travel to Anchorage to face the Glacier Pilots at 2 p.m. The team returns to the Valley for a 7 p.m. showdown with the Anchorage Bucs on Monday.

Contact Matt Tunseth at 352-2265 or matt.tunseth@

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