Michael Yourg brought in the winning run on a broken-bat single Wednesday night to lead the Peninsula Oilers to a 3-2 win over the Mat-Su Miners in Alaska Baseball League play.
In the team’s first extra-inning affair of the young season, Yourg’s two-out knock in the top of the 10th inning at Palmer’s Hermon Brothers Field was preceded by two Oilers being hit by a pitch by Miners relievers Kyle King and Sean Hughes.
The win lifted the Oilers to the top of the ABL standings at 6-2 to start the season, while the two-time defending champion Miners dropped to 3-5 overall.
Andrew Lopez preserved the victory and picked up the win by inducing a double play by Drew Swift in the bottom of the frame to end the game. Lopez struck out two in his nine-out scoreless appearance, giving up two hits and a walk. Lopez finished with 55 pitches thrown.
Mike Lopez had a strong six-inning start for the Oilers, giving up just three hits, whiffing one and issuing no walks, and Calvin Farris tossed a perfect inning in relief.
Ryan Koch led off the 10th with a hit-by-pitch, and Bryan Woo, making his ABL debut, reached on a fielder choice and was followed two batters later by a hit pitch to Ryan Novis.
From there, Yourg lifted a broken-bat single into left field to bring Woo in to score from second and put the Oilers up 3-2. Woo just got in under the tag of Miners catcher Aaron Walters with a deft maneuver.
“I was busting my butt trying to reach home plate, and I was going to run through the stop sign,” Woo said in a postgame radio interview on 1140 AM. “I saw the throw, and thought I’ve got to get inside … it was a bang-bang play and I just made it.”
Danny Wright lined a one-out single into the outfield to get on base for the Miners in the bottom of the 10th, but Swift eliminated the threat with a groundout double play.
Before the late drama, Spencer Henson put the Miners up 2-0 in the third inning with a two-run triple.
The Oilers clawed back in the top of the sixth, getting a run on a groundout by Bryce Begell, then tied it up on a throwing error by the third baseman that allowed Paul Kunst to score on a ball put in play by Berkey.
In the bottom of the ninth, the Miners could not convert a one-out double by Tyler Bosetti into a run, forcing the game into extras.
Paul Kunst, Evan Berkey, Grant Wood, Novis and Yourg all finished with a base hit for the Oilers, which equaled the five team hits the Miners put up.
A night after stranding 13 men on base, the Oilers only left three on Wednesday.
The Oilers continue their eight-game road trip tonight with a 7 p.m. game against the Anchorage Glacier Pilots at Mulcahy Stadium to open another two-game set.
