PITCHING PIPELINE: Texas A&M continues to provide Miners with top arms

PALMER — For the last four seasons, the Mat-Su Miners have tapped into a pitching pipeline that starts in College Station, Texas. Several of the top arms on the Miners staff have been Aggies.

Ryan Hendrix, Tyler Stubblefield, Brigham Hill, Kyle Simonds, Corbin Martin, Stephen Kolek.

The Miners have another to add to the list.

Thursday, in his Mat-Su Miners debut, A&M freshman John Doxakis allowed only two hits over six scoreless innings to lead the Miners to a 5-1 win over the Anchorage Glacier Pilots at Hermon Brothers Field in Palmer.

“Great debut by Dox. We knew he was going to be a really good arm for us,” Mat-Su head coach Ben Taylor said after the win. “He established himself in a really nice way.”

The 6-foot-3 lefthander took a perfect game into the fifth, retiring the first 13 hitters he faced.

“He pounded the zone, threw a ton of strikes,” Taylor said. “When you pitch ahead in this league, you have a really good chance to win. And he pitched ahead all night.”

Doxakis sat down 16 of the 19 hitters he faced, allowing only a pair of singles and a walk during his final two innings of work. He threw 84 pitches, 55 for strikes.

“It felt really good,” Doxakis said of his debut. “I was in the (bullpen) all year at A&M, so it was good to get a start.”

Doxakis is among seven Aggies since 2014 to pitch for the Miners.

“We’ve had a pretty good tradition of having really good arms from A&M,” Taylor said.

During the 2017 college season, Doxakis was part of a Texas A&M pitching staff that featured three former Miners — Hill, Martin and Kolek — and helped the Aggies advance to the College World Series in Omaha. Taylor said the relationship has been great for both the Aggies and the Miners.

“It’s huge for us, huge for them. Their weekend rotation all pitched for us up here, and they went to Omaha,” Taylor said of Hill, Martin and Kolek. “And they’ve helped (the Miners) win a ton of games, including an ABL championship last year.”

Doxakis made 25 appearances as a freshman with the Aggies, and was 4-3 with a 5.44 earned run average. He had a 2-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio, fanning 51 in 49.2 innings pitched. Hill, Martin and Kolek combined to win 19 games for the Aggies in 2017. Hill was a team-best 8-3 with a team-high 100 innings pitched. He also led the Aggies with 111 strikeouts. Martin, who was selected in the second round of the MLB First-Year Player Draft by Houston in early June, was 7-4 with 95 strikeouts in 87.2 innings. Kolek added a 4-5 mark with 82 strikeouts in 90.1 innings.

Doxakis said his Aggie teammates with ties to the Miners had plenty to say about the Valley team and the league.

“They said it was the best time of their lives, their best summer,” Doxakis said. “They talked about it a lot.”

The six Texas A&M pitchers who played for the Miners between 2014 and 2016 have a combined 19-4 record with Mat-Su, and all have had an ERA of 3.15 or lower. In 2014, Stubblefield was 5-0 with a 1.08 ERA and 45 strikeouts. Hendrix finished 3-1 with 36 strikeouts and a 3.15 ERA.

In 2015, Martin didn’t allow an earned run in 21.2 innings of work, and fanned 27 hitters. Simonds was 5-0 with a 1.77 ERA and 28 strikeouts. Hill fanned 37 hitters in addition to his 2-2 record and 1.50 ERA.

Last season, Kolek was 3-0 with a 2.50 ERA and 30 strikeouts for the Miners.

Thursday night, the Mat-Su offense supported the stellar work of Doxakis on the mound with nine hits and five runs. Doxakis left the game with Mat-Su holding a 3-0 lead, and infielder Nick Brooks added to the advantage with a two-run homer in the eighth. Preston Pavlica led off the eighth with a single. Two batters later, Brooks knocked a ball over the left field wall.

“That’s what Brooks has to do,” Taylor said. “Brooks has to drive in runs. Pavlica has got to get on base and make things happen for us.”

Brooks is now has six hits, four for extra bases, in his last nine at-bats against the Pilots.

“He’s really confident, feeling really good, having a lot of fun,” Taylor said of Brooks. “It’s translating into a lot of success.”

Justin Ammons was 3 for 4 with an RBI in the win. Quinn Cotton was 2 for 3, and raised his team-best batting average to .368.

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