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After catching Kenny Bartz looking at 72 mph curveball on the outside corner for the second out of the eighth inning, Peninsula Oilers reliever Erik Draxton heard the announcement that a pinch hitter was approaching the plate.

With the tying run 90 feet away and the go-ahead run on second, Bobby Buckner, the son of baseball legend Bill Buckner, would attempt to knot the game for the Anchorage Bucs.

Draxton had no idea who he was facing.

"I heard the name," he said, "but I was like, 'No way. That's not Bill Buckner's son.'"

Well, it was, for four pitches at least.

Quickly jumping ahead in the count 1-2 after Buckner watched a 71 mph curve trickle by, Draxton again caught Buckner looking, this time on an 89 mph fastball, in escaping the inning with a precarious one-run lead which the Oilers eventually held onto in topping the Bucs, 3-2, on Thursday night at Coral Seymour Memorial Park.

Afterward, Draxton said it wouldn't have mattered had he known he was facing the son of a top-notch hitter, one who was less known for his ability to swing the bat as he was for being the goat of the 1986 World Series, when he let the series-clinching ground ball roll through his legs in Game 6 and the New York Mets went onto defeat the Boston Red Sox in seven games.

"My adrenaline was already going," he explained. "That's great for me if that's Bill Buckner's son. It goes to show just who you're facing up here. What kind of competition this really is and what kind of expectations you're at."

The win snapped a three-game losing streak for the Oilers, including two consecutive 2-1 setbacks to the Mat-Su Miners. The Oilers are now 12-4 overall and 3-4 in the Alaska Baseball League and face the Bucs at 7 p.m. tonight at Seymour Park.

"It's hard for us not getting offense but at the same time, we got the offense today," Draxton said. "Our hitters were a little more relaxed and they had better execution and they were more concentrated at the plate.

"Everybody gets frustrated when you lose. Nobody likes to lose," he added. "But the win, I think it will get us rolling and get us in a rhythm."

The Oilers fell behind 1-0 when Joe Gardner -- who earned his third win of the season after allowing just four hits and two runs with one strikeout and one walk in five effective innings -- left his first pitch of the second inning up and over the plate to Paul Goldschmidt, who deposited the curveball over the left field fence for the second homer at Coral Seymour in the last three games, neither by an Oiler.

"We knew ... their entire lineup could swing the bat," Oilers manager Tom Myers said. "When we did leave some balls up, they made us pay. It was an 0-0 pitch, letter high and he got a good swing off.

"As we go throughout the summer, that's a guy that potentially we're going to look to have him not beat us in key situations," he added. "Tip your cap to him. Anybody to hit the ball out with the wind blowing in in this ballpark earned it."

But in the third, the Oilers took their first lead since they topped the Anchorage Glacier Pilots 5-2 on Saturday, a span of three games.

Vince Belnome slapped a one-out single to right field, advanced to second on an opposite field single by Tre Dennis and came home with the tying run on a perfect sacrifice bunt down the first base line by Ryan McCurdy.

Mired in an 0-for-7 slump despite being the team's best hitter thus far, Anthony Aliotti snapped his personal skid by bringing home Dennis when he sent a 2-2 offering from Paul Gerrish up the middle.

The Bucs knotted the game in the fifth when Bartz led off with a single, moved to second on a sac bunt and took third on a wild pitch by Gardner. Casey Steglich then rifled a hard grounder to second baseman Bryan Horst, who couldn't handle the hop and grasp the ball, allowing Bartz to score.

Once again, though, the Oilers responded in their half.

P.J. Sequierra, who had walked to begin the frame, moved to second on a hit-and-run ground out and scored on a bloop single to right-center by McCurdy.

Oilers reliever Brandon Berl then escaped the sixth unscathed despite allowing a pair of baserunners, and departed after surrendering a single to Marti Mullins and hitting Evan Wells with two outs.

Enter Draxton, who induced Jimmy Parque to fly out to quell the threat.

But he allowed a pair of singles to open the eighth, one being erased on a fielder's choice, and both runners then advanced into scoring position on a passed ball.

Cool and calm, though, he fanned Bartz and Buckner to walk off the mound unharmed.

"It's a tough situation for anyone to come off the bench in that spot," Myers said of Buckner. "But Erik came in there and pounded the strike zone with all of his pitches.

"The biggest thing is he didn't let those hits rattle him. That's what you want to see out of your relievers, your key relievers and all of your pitchers. But you just don't know, when those situations come, how guys are going to handle them," he added. "And he's been fairly stoic all year when he goes out there and he competes and that's what he did tonight. That was a big, big inning that we won on the defensive side."

Flamethrower Seth Harvey earned his fifth save of the season and helped reversed the recent trend of one-run losses for the Oilers.

"If you look at our (pitching) staff, we're exceptional right now," Draxton said. "That's really what's been keeping us in the game, but at the same time, our defense and our offense is coming around and that's what has won us our first 10 games. So, that's what's going to win the rest."

Matthew Carroll can be reached at matthew.carroll@peninsulaclarion.com.