Mill Rats stave off Miners 5-3 for third straight victory
Jun. 18—The Johnstown Mill Rats held off multiple late-inning pushes by the West Virginia Miners to hang onto a 5-3 victory at Sargent's Stadium at the Point on Friday evening.
The Miners plated two runs in the top of the ninth inning, and had the go-ahead run at the plate. West Virginia first baseman Peyton Brown put a charge into Johnstown pitcher Sean Furlong's pitch, but center fielder Jake Casey snared the final out to preserve a gritty victory for the Mill Rats.
"Our kids battled, sometimes you get the big hit and sometimes you didn't," West Virginia interim manager A.B. Brown said following the loss.
"We got three or four big hits there late, even in that last inning, the last ball was crushed."
The story for most of the game was about Mill Rats starting pitcher Matthew Benton. The right-hander worked 61/3 innings and scattered six hits. He struck out four, but also induced 11 groundball outs, including a pair of double plays. Benton left the game with his team in control with a 4-1 advantage.
"I don't know, ever since the summer, it's like every other pitch is a groundball, which is weird because I was never really a groundball pitcher," Benton said after picking up a hard-earned victory on Friday. "Just located some pitches in some certain situations and we were able to turn a couple of double plays and credit to the infield and outfield, the defensive behind me really balled out for me."
"He's a competitor," Mill Rats manager Tyler Sullivan said of his starting pitcher. "He's done this all year so far.
"It's his third start and it was absolutely lights out: keeps it simple, fills it up with multiple pitches and just dominated them the entire game."
Benton was able to work comfortably throughout most of the game because his offense provided him with a nice cushion. Andrew Kribbs rocketed a double to score Joe Alcorn in the first inning to give the Mill Rats an early 1-0 advantage.
Johnstown added a run in the fourth on a Chase Cromer base hit.
The Mill Rats added two more in the fifth on a Lukas Torres base knock, and a second RBI single by Cromer.
The game started to get dicey for the home team after that.
After a one-out walk by Benton in the seventh, the Mill Rats turned to Sean Casteel, who subsequently loaded the bases.
Casteel worked out of his own jam by striking out Kevin Shea and Blake Lazaris, the No. 2 and 3 hitters, respectively, for the Miners.
A similar situation unfolded in the eighth. The Miners plated a run on a Jake Killingsworth single. With two men on and one out, Furlong came on to relieve Casteel, and he struck out a pair of batters to thwart the opportunity for West Virginia.
Some controversy started to brew in the eighth inning.
Johnstown's Asher Corl doubled to lead off the inning. The next batter, D.J. Alexander, was awarded first base not once, but twice by the umpires after apparently being hit with two different pitches.
The West Virginia dugout protested each call, and Alexander was sent back to the batters' box twice. In the end, it all worked out for the Mill Rats. Alexander slapped a double down the right field line to provide a much-needed insurance run for the home team.
"In a chippy moment like that, we try to keep it on ourselves," Sullivan said of the hectic eighth inning. "It's very easy to lose your cool with D.J. right there having two balls that borderline might have hit him, might have not, but either way, it's easy to get out of yourself and stayed calm, battled his way back and punched one through a hole and came up huge for us.
"That extra run was huge for us, you see how close it was at the end there."
After losing eight games in a row, Johnstown has now won three straight.
"We're coming together. This team, they're really bonding and really like each other, and close teams win those close games," Sullivan said after the narrow victory on Friday.
"I told them before the game that three is a winning streak, so hopefully we can turn that eight-game losing streak into an eight-game winning streak."
