Roller-coaster ride continues for Miners

PALMER — Struggling through a rough patch in their schedule, the Mat-Su Miners had lost six of their last 10 going into Monday. They’ve fallen from a brief stint atop the Alaska Baseball League to fourth place.

The good news for the Valley team is that the rest of the league isn’t breaking away, either. Just one game separates the Miners, 12-10, from the first place Alaska Goldpanners, 10-6. At 13-8, the Anchorage Bucs are in second place and Peninsula Oilers third at 10-8. The only team out of the race for the ABL crown at this rate is the Chugiak Chinooks, who bring up the rear 8.5 games back at 4-17.

One of those Chinooks losses came at the hands of the a Miners 10-5 win Saturday at Loretta French Field. The next day, however, the Glacier Pilots came out on top with a 7-3 win at Hermon Brothers Field.

Miners 10, Chinooks 5

Against the Chinooks, Miners third baseman Spencer Mahoney started the game off with a double to the left center gap. Shortstop AJ Simcox moved Mahoney to third with a sacrifice bunt and the Alaska Baseball League RBI leader Christin Stewart drove Mahoney in with a single that gave the Miners an early 1-0 lead.

“I wish we could say we drew it up like that, but it was a great way to start the baseball game,” head coach Ben Taylor said.

Taylor shuffled hitters in the batting order and it showed in the box score. The Miners drew 10 walks and had five players with multiple hits.

“What we were running out there wasn’t working, so we had to mix things up,” Taylor said. “The guys hitting in their new spots responded really well and did a great job.”

The Chinooks took a 2-1 lead heading into the top of the fourth inning when center fielder John Williams tied the game with an RBI single. Williams would strike again in the sixth with a two-run single. The Los Gatos, Calif., native finished the game 2-for-4 with a walk and three RBI out of the ninth spot in the batting order.

“I was seeing the ball really well and trying to grind out at bats,” Williams said. “I got some good pitches to hit early and took a good swing at them.”

The Miners added a run in the seventh on a sacrifice fly from second baseman Brenden Farney to make it a 6-3 Miners’ lead. In the top of the ninth, Farney supplied an RBI single and two more runs scored on an error from a ball off the bat of first baseman Patrick McGrath. Catcher Micheal Thomas drove in the final run with an infield hit. Farney and Thomas both finished the game with two RBI.

The late inning runs paid dividend as the Chinooks tallied two runs in the bottom half of the ninth.

“Baseball is a game where you have to play hard no matter what the score is and you never know when you’re going to need more runs,” Williams said. “It’s good to always, no matter what the score is, get insurance runs and keep grinding out at bats.”

Tyler Martin earned his first victory on the mound after going six innings and giving up seven hits and three earned runs. Beau Hilton worked two perfect innings in relief, retiring all six battered he faced and lowering his ERA to 0.90 on the season.

The Miners entered this game having lost their previous two contests by a total of 18 runs, while walking 11 batters and committing seven errors. On Saturday evening, the Miners’ pitching staff walked three batters and the defense did not commit an error.

“We had to compete tonight,” Taylor said. “There were some questions that had to be answered and some challenges that had to be met and they did a good job doing all of that.”

Glacier Pilots 7, Miners 3

The Miners may have played error-free ball on Saturday, but not on Sunday in a 7-3 loss to the Anchorage Glacier Pilots, their first loss to the Pilots this season.

“Today was a tough one. I thought the kids played really hard,” coach Taylor said. “A couple of bounces didn’t go our way, [Ty] Schlottmann gave us a great start, and I think we competed really hard at the plate like we usually do.”

Mat-Su trailed 1-0 as the team entered the bottom of the third inning. AJ Simcox tied the game with an RBI single that scored Spencer Mahoney. They were not done scoring in the inning, as Stewart hit a two-run single for his 22nd and 23rd RBI of the year and gave his team a 3-1 lead.

“I’m in a spot where I’m supposed to bring people in and I just try to do my job every time I go up to the plate,” Stewart said. “[I] just try to move them, score them, do whatever I have to do.”

The Pilots took the lead in the seventh after a couple of defensive miscues from the Miners at Hermon Brothers Field. The visitors pushed two more runs across in the ninth..

The Miners’ defense made four errors in the game that led to four unearned runs for the pitching staff. The Miners have committed 11 errors over their past four games. Prior to the last four contests, the Miners had seven errors total in their first 18 games.

“Some days you don’t hit, some days you don’t pitch, [and] some days you don’t play good defense,” Taylor said. “I would be shocked with the quality of player and quality of young men that we have on this team that things would continue to trend this way.”

The Pilots returned to Palmer Monday night to take on the Miners for the final league meeting between the two teams.

The Miners will continue their homestand today with a doubleheader against the Peninsula Oilers. The first game starts at 5 p.m. They teams play again at 7 p.m., Wednesday.

Miners notes: Cristin Stewart leads the Alaska Baseball League with 23 RBI so far this season, and is sixth in the league with a .325 batting average. … Pitcher Phillip Orr is tied for the league lead in ERA with A.J. Quintero of the Peninsula Oilers with an ERA of 0.47. Through Sunday, he’s pitched 19 innings in three starts, giving up 1 earned run.