Miners Keep Offense Humming in Throttling of Oilers

So far in this ABL season, the five offenses can be placed into two groups: the Mat-Su Miners, and everybody else.

After their 10-1 drubbing of the visiting Peninsula Oilers on Thursday, the Miners have 45 runs on the season, 11 clear of the second-place Bucs. Run differential tells an even more dominant story: Mat-Su towers over the competition at plus-27, more than double the Bucs' plus-12 mark. Their opponents, the Oilers, now sit at minus-fifteen, comfortably the worst in the ABL despite having played fewer games than everyone else. That, it seems, is what playing half your contests against the Miners will do.

The Miners faced an early deficit, as Oilers leadoff man Max Roffwarg was hit by the first pitch of the game by Rocco Bernadina (1-0) and later came around to score on a Colin Robson single. After the first man to bat for Peninsula touched home, however, no one else would follow.

In the bottom half of that inning, Peninsula starter Max Sasaki (0-1) allowed four of the first five Miners bats to strike singles, before a Ryker Schow bases-loaded walk gave the Miners the lead before Sasaki had gotten a second out. He'd have to wait a bit longer, too, as a Chase Wilcox bases-clearing double surged the Miners to a 5-1 lead. Wilcox himself would later score on a Sasaki wild pitch, and the Miners chased Sasaki from the game after just one inning.

The Miners would add the rest of their ten runs bit by bit: Drake Kerr drove one in with a sacrifice fly in the third, Dom Patrizi helped score Wilcox for the second time with a single in the fourth, and Wilcox himself would get Mat-Su to double-digits for the first time this season with his second double of the game.

Wilcox's 5 RBIs and 2 runs were both season highs for the Central Missouri product. On the pitching side, Bernadina got the win after one inning of work, but pitching coach Steve Hecker fielded a new pitcher for each individual inning of the contest. After the game, head coach Ty LeBrun said Hecker employed the strategy both to confuse the Oilers hitters and to make sure as many pitchers on the roster as possible were sharp ahead of this weekend's MLB Showcase in Anchorage.

With this win in the books, the Miners depart from Palmer, not to return until June 24.

In the meantime, Mat-Su will play a trio of exhibition games in front of MLB scouts at Mulcahy Stadium, beginning on Friday against the Bucs. First pitch from Anchorage will be at 6 PM AKDT, so head to the stadium or tune into the broadcast to keep up with the Mat-Su Miners action!