Triple play saves the day

June 19,2005

JEREMIAH BARTZ/Frontiersman sports editor

PALMER - The Mat-Su Miners may just have a desire to be dramatic.

The Miners escaped a pair of late jams to secure a 5-3 win over the Fubon Bulls at Hermon Brothers Field on Thursday.

Fubon, a squad from Taiwan, loaded the bases with no outs in the eighth and ninth innings. The Miners avoided an eighth- inning meltdown by pulling off a rare triple play. Mat-Su even managed to make an unusual play a little more bizarre.

With the bases loaded, Michael Taylor caught a fly ball in right field for the first out. The Fubon runner at third made an attempt for home. Taylor made the throw to the plate, and Mat-Su catcher Matt McBride notched the tag at home. During the play at the plate, the Fubon runner at first base sprinted toward second. After making the tag at home, McBride gunned down the runner at second base.

"I thought a play I saw earlier this year was weird," Mat-Su manager Jimmy Smith said. "But this one takes the cake. It was the most unorthodox triple play you'll ever see."

After avoiding a possible eighth-inning disaster, the Miners put themselves in another bad position in the ninth. Mat-Su walked three consecutive hitters, and Fubon loaded the bases with no outs. With the bases loaded, the Miners put Haley Winter on the mound, and the University of California-Riverside product struck out the first two hitters he faced and ended the game with a ground-ball out. It was the first appearance this season for Winter, a member of the 2004 member squad. The Mat-Su coaching staff is hesitant about the extended use of Winter early in the summer. Winter logged 110 innings during his sophomore season at California-Riverside.

Smith said, that in a perfect world, he would try not to use Winter this early, but the right-hander came in and did exactly what the Miners needed to do.

B.J. Rosenberg pitched seven strong innings as the Mat-Su starter. Josh Smith earned the win in relief.

In addition to leading off the triple play, Taylor led the Miners at the plate. The Stanford freshman recorded a two-run double, and drove in the game-winning run. McBride also drove in a run.

The Miners host the Omaha Zone today at Hermon Brothers. Mat-Su split a two-game series with Omaha early last week, winning the first contest 9-0 and dropping the second, 6-4. The game, with a first pitch scheduled for 2 p.m., will also feature an appearance by Major League Baseball Hall of Famer Bobby Doerr.