Miners lose five-run lead, game at Gateway
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[SAUGET - It's been said often and paraphrased many different ways, but simply put you cannot score enough runs to ever feel safe at GCS Ballpark.
The Southern Illinois Miners took a five-run lead into the bottom of the eighth inning Tuesday night against the Gateway Grizzlies but saw three home runs leave the park's snug confines in that frame and ultimately were stung with a 9-8 loss by Charlie Lisk's walkoff RBI single in another wild Frontier League contest.
The stunning setback left the Miners (13-10) with yet another numb feeling a night after giving up a two-run lead in the ninth inning only to rally back for an extra-inning win.
The Grizzlies' (8-15) latest comeback hinged mostly on two consecutive swings on the first two pitches of the night by Miners all-star reliever Jake McMurran, who has been the club's most reliable arm out of the bullpen in the opening weeks of the season.
But in the eighth, McMurran inherited two baserunners with two outs after newcomer Derrick Miramontes, who had given up a one-out solo homer to Stephen Holdren, put two more runners on base with a walk and single sandwiched around a groundout.
McMurran's first pitch to Chad Rothford was sent over the wall for a three-run homer that brought the Grizzlies within a run, then on the very next pitch, Alex Kerins also sent one over the short porch in right-center field to tie the game. Two pitches later, Breck Draper flied out to deep center for the final out.
The Miners were put down emphatically in the top of the ninth by 6-foot-4 rookie righthander Shaun Ellis, who struck out Justin Randall, Brad Miller and Jereme Milons in succession to set the stage for a walkoff victory.
Mike Damchuk, who like Miramontes joined the Miners' bullpen in the last few days, took the mound in the ninth and appeared in good shape after getting Brad Thoma to pop out and then inducing a ground ball to first base by Joe Ubbenga. But Miller fell while trying to flip the ball to Damchuk covering the base for an error rather than having two outs.
Then after the Grizzlies' hot-hitting outfielder Joseph Scaperotta drew a walk, longtime Gateway nemesis Lisk singled up the middle against a drawn-in defense to provide the winning tally.
Holdren and fellow outfielder Jareck West both had three of the Grizzlies' 13 hits on a night when eight different Gateway players had hits and six scored runs - although it trailed 8-3 with just six outs left.
Joey Metropoulos hit a two-run homer in the first inning after Milons had singled in Miller to give the Miners a quick 3-0 lead, only to see West rip a two-run triple in the bottom half against starter Danny Zeffiro.
Kevin Koski plated a run with a single in the second inning and the Miners tacked on two more in the fourth when Gered Mochizuki drove in Andrew Sweet and Randall hit a sacrifice fly that chased in Randy Molina, who doubled, to make it 6-2.
Gateway's only other run against Zeffiro came in the fourth when Kerins hit a two-out double, although arguably the Miners should have been out of inning. Koski slipped and fell on a patch of wet grass in center field on Kerins' fly ball, which came with runners in motion on a full count.
Zeffiro's night ended after pitching seven strong innings in which he scattered seven hits, struck out three and issued just one walk and the three earned runs, with the last certainly feeling unearned if not officially marked that way.
Sweet homered to right-center in the top of the fifth to get that run back and the Miners went ahead 8-3 in the eighth. Tony Roth reached on an error, was part of a double steal after Molina singled, then scored on a groundout by Mochizuki.
That five-run lead, on another crazy night at GCS Ballpark, turned out to be not so comfortable.
The rubber game of the series takes place at noon Wednesday with the Miners sending Ryan Bird (3-0, 1.07 ERA) to the mound.