Peninsula Oilers shortstop Skyler Messinger is a poster boy for just how quickly things can change for a player and his team in baseball.
Friday at Coral Seymour Memorial Park in Kenai, Messinger went 0 for 4 with three strikeouts and committed a crucial error as the Oilers struck out 10 times as a team and made four crucial errors in a humbling 9-1 loss to the Chugiak-Eagle River Chinooks.
The defeat dropped Peninsula to 2-6 in the Alaska Baseball League and also meant the Oilers had ceded the first three games of a home-opening, six-game set against the Chinooks.
“Every loss was getting worse and worse,” Oilers head coach Kyle Brown said.
Saturday in the first game of a doubleheader, the Oilers entered the fifth trailing 5-2 but scored five runs in the fifth and five runs in the sixthto take a 12-7 victory. The big blow was a grand slam by Calvin Farris.
“Baseball is that way sometimes,” Chinooks head coach Jon Groth said. “Their bats woke up.”
But Messinger was still struggling, finishing 0 for 3 in Saturday’s first game.
In Saturday’s second game, he grounded out his first time up before coming to the plate in the third with the bases loaded and two outs. Three runs were already in and the game was tied at 4.
Messinger flew out, but a balk was called on the play, scoring Jaden Fein and giving Messinger another chance. This time he doubled to the wall to put the Oilers up 7-4 in an eventual 8-6 win.
Brown said the moment was cathartic for Messinger and the whole team.
“For me, this was when you shake a Coke bottle up and it builds and builds until finally the top pops off,” Brown said.
Sunday in front of a thick Father’s Day crowd, Messinger and the Oilers kept bubbling. The Kansas player went 3 for 3 with an RBI and a run as the errorless Oilers won 3-2 to halve the series.
At 5-6, the Oilers are back in the thick of the ABL race, sitting in fourth and two games behind the league-leading Anchorage Bucs. The Chinooks are 4-7 and three games back.
“Calvin (Saturday) and his grand slam were huge,” Messinger said. “I feel like that was just what we needed to relax a bit.”
The Oilers success Sunday started with the four pitchers — Brian Merken, Jacob Reed, Kyle Muller and Damon Keith — who combined to limit the Chinooks to two runs on four hits.
“Tip your cap to Johnny Wholestaff today,” Groth said.
The effort on the mound meant a three-run rally by the Oilers in the bottom of the second was enough for the victory.
Bobby Goodloe started the inning with a double, but the next two batters were retired. Up stepped Messinger, but this time he would need no mulligan. He drilled a double off the wall in left center to score Goodloe.
“I tried to turn my brain off a bit — get up and let my instinct take over,” Messinger said. “Just go up and hit it hard.”
Jonathan Villa then singled to score Messinger, and Kenai Central product Paul Steffensen followed with a single and swipe of second to put two runners in scoring position for Camden Vasquez.
Vasquez singled on the infield to score Villa, then Steffensen was cut down at home to end the inning.
Groth was very happy with the start of Tyler O’Clair, who went six innings and gave up eight hits, and the relief of Brian Cardone, who gave up just a hit in two innings.
That pitching almost let the Chinooks steal a win.
In the fourth, Ethan English had a two-run home run. In the ninth, Keith had set down the first five Chinooks he saw — three by strikeout — when J Paul Fullerton doubled with two away.
Jake Collins immediately went down 0-2, but then ripped a hard grounder down the third-base line that was foul by, as Groth said, a whisker. Instead of being the go-ahead run on second base, Collins would fly out to end the game.
“We’re playing 10 games in nine days,” Groth said. “I’m still happy to leave here 3-3. We had lost four straight games coming in here.”
Vasquez continued to impress at his leadoff spot, finishing 2 for 3 to raise his average to .487. Goodloe was 2 for 4.
“I still don’t think we’re firing on all cylinders yet,” Messinger said. “We’ll be a really dangerous squad when we get it going this summer.”
The Oilers take Monday off before beginning an eight-game road trip with 7 p.m. games Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday against the Mat-Su Miners.
Oilers outfielders Calvin Farris, Camden Vasquez and Paul Steffensen receive congratulations after the Oilers defeated the Chugiak-Eagle River Chinooks on Sunday, June 16, 2019, at Coral Seymour Memorial Park in Kenai, Alaska.
