Baseball is often cruel, but it also is often just.
The Peninsula Oilers lost to the Anchorage Bucs, 6-5, on Friday at Coral Seymour Memorial Park in Kenai. After losing to the Oilers in the series opener Wednesday, the Bucs have now won three straight.
All three losses have come by one run.
“They’re a good team. We’re a good team,” Bucs assistant coach Bishop Griggs said. “It’s two teams battling that really want to get after it and win.
“We’ve had some bounces go our way, but that’s baseball sometimes.”
The losing streak has the Oilers at the bottom of an ABL is which three games separate the top and bottom squads.
The Bucs and Anchorage Glacier Pilots lead the league at 9-7, while the Mat-Su Miners are 7-7, the Chugiak-Eagle River Chinooks are 6-6 and the Oilers are 5-9.
The series concludes Saturday at 6 p.m.
Oilers head coach Larry McCann said his team developed a tight bond in a season-opening road trip, and he thinks the losing streak hasn’t changed that.
“It’s baseball. You’re not going to win every day,” McCann said. “The game rewards the guys that do things right. If you don’t do the right thing, the game knows.
“It happens. You see it. A guy walks a guy, and especially here, things happen. And that’s what’s continued to happen to us.”
Three of the six Bucs runs got on base with a hit batter or walks, while three of the five Oilers runs reached on walks.
McCann has been in the ABL since coaching the Glacier Pilots in 2018. He said pitching, defense and executing on offense win games, not power hitting.
“Nobody gets five or six hits in a row here,” he said of the league where college players swing wood bats. “I haven’t seen it yet. And not many people are leaving the park.”
The Oilers grabbed a 1-0 lead in the second when Nick Costello scored an unearned run on a ground-out by Michael Elko.
The Bucs then had the game’s biggest rally in the third against Oilers starter and loser Ryne Palmer.
The Bucs loaded the bases when Logan Hokuf singled, No. 9 hitter Ben Haar walked and Cade Lacy singled.
Hokuf scored when Myles Smith was hit by a pitch. A walk to Zach Thomas forced in Haar, a walk to Alex Pendergast scored Lacy and a sac fly by Lex Boedicker knocked in Smith for a 4-1 lead.
Palmer exited after three innings, but William Grimm pitched three scoreless innings and Homer High and Legion Twins product Mose Hayes pitched two scoreless innings to let the Oilers work their way back into the game.
Peninsula got to Bucs starter and winner Sky Wells for another run in the fifth before Wells departed. Michael Elko, who reached base all four times, walked and scored on a single by Owen McElfatrick.
In the seventh, Rodda and Michael Elko had an old-fashioned Oilers double-double for a run against Bucs reliever Justin Hebert, a Gatorade Alaska Player of the Year out of South High now going into his sophomore year of college.
In the eighth, the Oilers tied it at 4 when Drewbie Pinkston led off with a walk against Hebert and scored on a bang-bang play on a sac fly by Theo Forshey.
Connor Throneberry came on in the ninth and walked No. 9 hitter Haar to lead off the inning. Lacy, who was 3 for 4, singled, then runners moved up when the ball got away from catcher Josiah Chavez.
Jaxon Sorenson, who was 2 for 5, made the Oilers pay with a two-RBI single through a drawn-in infield.
“Our hitters stepped up after a little bit of a lull,” Griggs said. “Late innings, we’re a team that competes. We’re not going to stop playing.”
The Oilers rallied in the ninth, starting with a leadoff walk to Rodda by reliever Oliver Brown, who got the win. Elko grounded into a potential double play, but Bucs shortstop Hokuf missed tagging the bag, leaving a runner on second.
The Bucs turned to Cade Wiegert to get the save. He got Grupe for the second out, but walked McElfatrick and gave up an infield single to Pinkston that scored Rodda. Ben Griffin walked to load the bases, but Costello, who was 2 for 5, stuck out.
“We had a lot of trust in him and knew he was going to get the job done,” Griggs said of Wiegert. “He had a rough outing the other day, but it was a quick one.
“We knew he’d get the job done today.”
Oilers third baseman Theo Forshey tags out Bucs’ Myles Smith on a steal attempt Friday, June 23, 2023, at Coral Seymour Memorial Park in Kenai, Alaska. (Photo by Jeff Helminiak/Peninsula Clarion)
Peninsula Oilers’ Drewbie Pinkston scores on a sacrifice fly past Anchorage Bucs catcher Trenton Burkhalter to tie the game at 4 in the eighth Friday, June 23, 2023, at Coral Seymour Memorial Park in Kenai, Alaska. (Photo by Jeff Helminiak/Peninsula Clarion)
