The Peninsula Oilers fell victim to a late rally by the Anchorage Glacier Pilots on Thursday at Mulcahy Stadium, losing 5-4 in walk-off fashion.
The Oilers led 4-1 into the bottom of the seventh but gave up three runs to tie it. The Pilots won it in the bottom of the 10th on a controversial call at first base by the umpiring crew. With the winning run just 90 feet away on third, Zach Sehgal grounded to second and barely beat the throw to first to allow the winning run to score.
With their second straight loss, the Oilers (12-21) fall to 11 games behind the Anchorage Bucs (22-9) in the Alaska Baseball League standings.
The Oilers begin the ABL All-Star festivities with an exhibition game today at 1 p.m. at Mulcahy against the Mat-Su Miners, then play the Anchorage Bucs on Saturday at 7 p.m.
The Pilots got the late comeback started in the bottom of the seventh with a Zach Morgan RBI double and RBI singles by EJ Andrews and Alex Baeza.
The Oilers steadily built a 4-1 lead over the course of the early innings. Drew Thorpe struck first with an RBI single in the opening frame.
In the second, Bobby Goodloe’s grounder forced a Pilots error to send Jonathan Villa home to score for a 2-1 lead, and the Oilers added an insurance run in the third on a sac fly by Adam Dapkewicz. Peninsula tacked on another in the seventh on a Travis Bohall RBI ground-out to make it 4-1 Oilers. Bohall ended 2 for 5 on the day.
Jake Fenn lasted 5 2-3 innings in another stellar start for the Oilers, giving up one unearned run on four hits and five walks, while striking out three.
