Dominant Teasley Leads Miners to Fourth Straight Win
June 24, 2016 - Frontier League (FL)
Southern Illinois Miners News Release
Marion, Ill. - The Southern Illinois Miners got a spectacular performance on Friday night from Rick Teasley against the Evansville Otters at Rent One Park, as he tossed eight-plus shutout innings while allowing just two baserunners between the first and ninth innings in the Miners' fourth straight victory, 4-1, in the opener of the three-game weekend series between the top two teams in the West Division.
After Rolando Gomez and Josh Allen both got on base with bunt singles leading off the ballgame and Chris Riopedre laid down a sacrifice bunt, the Miners nabbed the lead runner at third base for the first out of the game. Evansville would be almost completely shut down by Teasley after that, as the southpaw then retired ten batters in a row until a two-out walk to Chris Breen in the fourth inning. He followed that up with another streak of seven batters in a row sent down before retiring six in a row after permitting an infield single to Nik Balog in the seventh.
All told, before he walked the leadoff man to start the ninth, ending his night, Teasley sent down 23 of the 25 batters he faced between the one-out situation in the first and the end of the eighth inning, firing 72 of his 104 total pitches for strikes with two walks, six punchouts and three hits allowed, none of which got past the Miners' infielders in a dominant performance for his fourth win of the year.
The Miners' offense rallied with two outs in the third for all the support Teasley would require. Aaron Gates doubled to deep right off Preston Olson (1-1), and scored on an RBI single by Shane Kennedy to make it 1-0. After Craig Massey walked, Alex De Leon worked the count full before lining a double to the gap in right-center, plating both runners for a 3-0 lead. Southern Illinois would also add an insurance run in the sixth on an RBI fielder's choice by Steve Marino for a 4-0 lead, and the Otters would not score until the ninth inning against Chris DeBoo after Teasley departed. With the tying run at the plate and two outs after one run had scored, Julio Rodriguez singled to center field, and the final out of the game was made when Jeff Gardner was thrown out at third base by Brendan O'Brien.
The Miners widened their lead to three games over the Otters in the West Division standings with the victory, their 15th in their last 18 games overall. They will look to keep momentum going in the second game of the series on Saturday night at 6:05 p.m., handing the ball to Jarett Miller against Evansville's Trevor Walch.
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