Miners Notch Comeback Victory at Joliet
Published on July 10, 2015 under Frontier League (FL)
Southern Illinois Miners News Release
Marion, Ill. (July 10, 2015) - The Southern Illinois Miners took an early lead but saw the Joliet Slammers put up five runs in the third inning to take the lead away. They were not finished, however, and responded with five runs of their own in the fourth to take the lead for good in an 8-5 victory over the Slammers at Silver Cross Field in Joliet on Friday night.
Brian Portelli opened up the scoring with a long solo homer off Andrew Strenge (4-5) in the third to make it 1-0 Miners. Joliet, however, took advantage of a sloppy inning by the Miners in the bottom half of the third, batting around and scoring five runs on only three hits thanks to two walks, a hit batter and a wild pitch by Adam Lopez (7-0), plus an error in the frame that made only two of the runs earned off the Miners starter.
Southern Illinois got right back at it, though, and knocked Strenge out of the game by sending all nine men in the order to the dish. They scored five runs on five hits in the inning, with RBIs by Jerrud Sabourin, Joe Rapp, Toby DeMello and Michael Earley to take a 6-5 lead. From there, both pitching staffs held the other team's lineup down. Lopez lasted five innings, allowing just five hits while walking four and striking out five to earn his league-leading seventh win of the season.
The Miners plated two more runs in the ninth on RBIs by Steve Marino and Portelli, the latter of which came on the rookie's fourth hit of the game. After flawless relief by the bullpen, Pete Perez recorded a scoreless ninth for his seventh save, as the Miners improved their league-best road record to 17-5 and remained one game back of first place in the East division by pounding out 14 hits on offense, outpacing the Slammers 14-6 in the category.
The Miners will go for the series win on Saturday in the second game of the series, with Jon Klein taking the ball for Southern Illinois at 6:05 p.m. against a starter to be announced for Joliet.
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