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PALMER — Last week, the Mat-Su Miners were working their way to get back over .500. Now, after three straight wins, the Miners sit a half-game out of first place in the Alaska Baseball League standings.
“At this point we’ve played ourselves into the conversation this week with some games coming up,” Mat-Su Miners head coach Ben Taylor said after his team’s 3-1 win over the Anchorage Glacier Pilots Monday night at Hermon Brothers Field in Palmer. “We’ve made some games meaningful, and that’s fun.”
The Miners (10-7) used five doubles to get past the Pilots for the third time in four nights.
“The guys came out swinging,” Taylor said. “They were swinging the bats in spots where we needed it.”
Aaron Walters, Austin Pinorini, David Avitia, Braydon Merritt and Drew Swift each smacked a double during the win. Caleb Van Blake also put a line drive single off the right field wall.
Four Mat-Su pitchers combined to allow only four hits and one earned run. Noah Cordova earned the win on the mound, pitching 1 2/3 innings of relief. Sean Hughes added two innings of scoreless relief. Bryce Tassin earned his third save of the summer.
“I thought the bullpen did a really good job,” Taylor said.
Ian Churchill made the start. The only hit, and run, Churchill allowed in 4 1/3 was a Breydon Daniel blast over the left field wall in the second. Otherwise, the lefty fanned five and walked only one.
Daniel gave Anchorage the lead in the top of the second, but Mat-Su had the quick answer in the bottom of the evening. Avitia doubled to left field with one out and scored on a Merritt double to tie the score at 1. The Miners added two runs in the third. Walters doubled and scored on a Pinorini double. Pinorini gave the Miners a 3-1 lead on a Van Blake single.
Mat-Su returns to the field to host the Peninsula Oilers Tuesday at 7 p.m. at Hermon Brothers. As of Monday night, the Oilers (11-7) led Mat-Su by a half-game in the standings.
Contact Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman sports editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@frontiersman.com.
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