Miners return home with league lead

PALMER — The Mat-Su Miners took a trip to Kenai. They came home with a two-game lead in the Alaska Baseball League.

Mat-Su finished 5-1 against the Peninsula Oilers during its five-day, six-game stay in Kenai, and improved to 7-1 in ABL play.

“We went down there as a bunch of guys and came back as a team,” Miners head coach Ben Taylor said after returning to Palmer. “It was a really good road trip on a lot of levels.”

Prior to the start of the 2017 campaign, Taylor, a fifth-year head coach in the league, circled the early road trip on his calendar. Taylor said he knew it was a great opportunity for the Miners, on and off the diamond.

“Bonding-wise, confidence-wise, it was great for the team,” Taylor said. “It was a lot of fun too.”

Taylor said Miners faithful made sure his players were taken care of.

We can’t thank Pete and Denise and the host families enough,” Taylor said of Miners management. “They (fed) us, made the trip special for the boys.”

The Miners left Kenai as the top hitting and pitching squad in the five-team ABL. The pitching staff has a league-best 1.75 earned run average, and leads the league with 51 strikeouts. The Miners are also hitting a league-best .295. Mat-Su leads the ABL in hits (77), runs (51), home runs (5), stolen bases (11) and walks (44).

Mat-Su has drawn more than twice as many walks as the next team, and has as many triples, three, as the other four teams in the league combined.

The Miners outscored the Oilers 37-14 during the six-game trip, and capped the stay with a 4-0 victory Tuesday night. Starter Spencer Henson and reliever Jacob Butcher combined for a four-hit shutout. Henson scattered three hits over seven innings, and fanned three. Butcher allowed a hit and had a strikeout during two innings of work.

Blake Benefield hit his third home run of the summer, a three-run blast in the first, to spark the Miners offense. Justin Ammons added an RBI double.

The Miners return home to host the Chugiak-Eagle River Chinooks Thursday before back-to-back games in Anchorage. The Miners play the Bucs Saturday at 6 p.m. at Mulcahy and the Pilots Sunday at 7 p.m.

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