Gaines Doubles Miners Past Otters for Series Sweep
Published on June 26, 2016 under Frontier League (FL)
Southern Illinois Miners News Release
Marion, Ill. - The Southern Illinois Miners and Evansville Otters were locked in a tie game for most of Sunday's contest at Rent One Park, but ended up winning late again, this time on a pinch-hit, two-run double by Julius Gaines in the bottom of the eighth inning for a 5-3 win, securing the team's sixth win in a row and 17th in their last 20 overall.
The Miners scored two runs in the first to take the early lead on former Miner Hunter Ackerman, as Aaron Gates and Shane Kennedy singled and doubled, respectively, to put runners at second and third with no one out. Craig Massey and Alex De Leon then brought home both runners with back-to-back RBI groundouts for a 2-0 home team advantage. But Evansville, on four straight hits leading off the second plus a pair of wild pitches by Dyllon Nuernberg, scored three times to take the lead in the second inning.
With the score 3-2 and Vin Guglietti at first base, Brendan O'Brien hit a double to left-center that moved Guglietti to third, and he was able to come home on an error when the ball was mishandled by John Schultz in left field, tying the score at 3-3. Both teams had several opportunities to break the tie, but the game would remain tied until the eighth thanks to Ackerman on the Evansville side working out of jams with men on base and Kyle Tinius on the Southern Illinois side, who came in in the fifth inning and proceeded to retire every single one of the ten batters he faced, pitching three and one-third innings of perfect baseball.
He would end up with the win as well as Southern Illinois finally broke through off Shane Weedman in the eighth. Steve Marino worked a leadoff walk and after a flyout, Toby DeMello launched a ground-rule double to center field, setting up the Miners with runners at second and third. With O'Brien and Gates due up, Evansville brought in lefty Ken Frosch from the bullpen, and the Miners then countered with Gaines, who served a double into right-center to plate both Marino and DeMello to give the Miners a 5-3 lead. In the ninth, Nick Palacios came in and with a man at first induced a line-drive double play right to De Leon. He then struck out Josh Allen swinging to nail down the save, win, and sweep, increasing the Miners' lead over Evansville in the West Division to five games.
The Miners will remain at home after a day off on Monday to begin a stretch of 13 games in 13 days leading to the all-star break by hosting the Schaumburg Boomers in a three-game series beginning on Tuesday at 7:05 p.m. Dan Ludwig will pitch for the Miners against Boomers' ace right-hander Seth Webster.
The Southern Illinois Miners are the back-to-back Frontier League East Division Champions and the 2012 Frontier League Champions. They have been awarded the Frontier League Organization of the Year award three times since their inception, and also set a new Frontier League attendance record in 2007, their inaugural season. For ticket information, contact the Rent One Park box office at (618) 998-8499. For any additional information, visit our website at www.southernillinoisminers.com.
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