The Peninsula Oilers defeated the Anchorage Glacier Pilots 6-3 on Friday in Alaska Baseball League action at Coral Seymour Memorial Park in Kenai.
The Oilers took advantage of five unearned runs allowed by the Pilots in the first inning to snare wins in the first two games of the series and improve to 5-2 in the season series against Anchorage.
The five-game series continues at Seymour Park on Saturday at 6 p.m., Sunday at 2 p.m. and Monday at 6 p.m.
Peninsula’s solid play of late has also helped to tighten the ABL standings.
The Anchorage Bucs defeated the Mat-Su Miners 9-5 on Friday and the Bucs (19-16) and Miners (17-14) are now tied for first place, while the Glacier Pilots are just a half game back at 17-15.
The Oilers bumped their record all the way up to 14-16 and are 2.5 games back, while the idle Chugiak-Eagle River Chinooks are 12-18 and 4.5 games back.
Cole Clark took the hard-luck loss for the Pilots, working the first five innings and giving up the five unearned runs on three hits. Clark walked three and struck out five.
Evan Langer worked the first three innings for the Oilers, giving up three runs — two earned — on four hits while walking three and striking out two.
After that, William Grimm and Ty Thomas locked down the game in relief.
Grimm pitched four scoreless innings to record the win, giving up five hits and striking out three.
Thomas recorded a scoreless and hitless final two innings, walking one and striking out three.
The Oilers were able to record just three hits in three innings against Pilots reliever Joe Inglesias, but one of them was a big one.
Michael Rodda uncorked his first home run of the year to give the Oilers an insurance run in the eighth inning.
Nick Costello also was 2 for 3 for the Oilers, while Theo Forshey had two RBIs.
Troy Harding was 2 for 5 for the Pilots.
