Miners Use Power to get Past AIA Fire 4-2

The 4-2 score does not show how much of a nail biter this one ended up.  In the top of the 9th the Fire had their best offensive inning of the night.  Relief pitcher Ryan Cole got the first two batters to fly out, but then 3 straight base runners gave the Fire the bases loaded with 2 outs.  Brian Kolb was then due up for the visiting Athletes in Action after already going 2-4 before this at bat.  Cole finished things off in dramatic fashion getting Kolb to pop out to third baseman Chad Marshall to pick up his 2nd save of the summer.  

The Miners got their run production in a very different way than normal.  Before this game, Mat-Su has done a great job playing small ball and station-to-station baseball to put runs up on the board.  Last night they relied on the power in the heart of the lineup.  Jonathan Cisneros got things started as he "went yaya" as his family said in the Miners Chat.  The 2 run jack was the first for any Miner yet this summer and scored Shane Brown as well to give the Miners a 2-0 lead in the 4th.  

The Fire responded in the 6th with a run of their own, but the Miners' big bats were not done.  After Cisneros' lead off walk, DJ Gentile sent one over the wall the other way to move it to the 4 Mat-Su finished with.  

Coach Raley mentioned the strength of this squad is now its depth with all but 2 players up here and it showed in this one.  For the first time, the Miners were locked in a pitchers duel.  They could not advance many runners past 2nd base.  The power they used to cover up the lack of runners in scoring positions shows to me that this team can now win a game in many different ways.  This will definitely pay off when the rest of the season pans out.