The Southern Illinois Miners received another dominant outing from their starter, this time from Adam Lopez, and scored one run in each of the first three innings while weathering a seventh-inning rally to win 3-2 on Saturday night over the Florence Freedom at UC Health Stadium.
The Miners jumped on top of Florence starter Patrick McGrath (0-1), who was making his pro debut, in the first when Michael Earley homered the opposite way to right field on the eighth pitch of his at-bat for a 1-0 Miners lead. In the second inning, Brian Portelli reached on a two-base error by right fielder Collins Cuthrell and later scored on an RBI fielder’s choice by Adrian English to make it 2-0 before a sacrifice fly by Steve Marino in the third gave Southern Illinois a three-run cushion.
Lopez (8-0) started out his outing by surrendering a ground-rule double to Florence’s Daniel Fraga, but gave up no hits the rest of the time he was on the mound. The right-hander set the tone early by recording five of his first six outs on strikeouts, finishing with a season-high nine that also tied his career-high over six innings of shutout baseball, walking four and allowing just the lone hit to remain unbeaten on the season.
Florence mounted a two-out rally in the seventh against Pete Perez on two walks plus an RBI double by Steve Carrillo in the frame that made it 3-2, but Evan Mott came in and recorded the final out to keep the Miners in the lead. Mott then struck out the side in the eighth before Eric Green notched his second save with a 1-2-3 ninth thanks to some help from his defense. After catching the first two hitters in the ninth looking at strike three, Travis Weaver sent a long fly ball to the left field corner and was robbed of extra bases by Portelli, who made a game-ending leaping catch.
The Miners evened the series at one game apiece and forced a rubber match on Sunday evening at 5:05 p.m. CT Jarett Miller will take the ball for the Miners against Florence right-hander Coleman Stephens as the Miners look to win an eleventh consecutive road series.
Jason Guerette is the Grizzlies' Director of Broadcasting and Media Relations and the "Voice of the Grizzlies." 2023 will be his second season with the organization, handling lead broadcasting duties on the Grizzlies Media Network as well as being in charge of all team press releases and game-day media materials.
2023 will also be Jason's ninth season in the Frontier League after spending 2014-21 in the same role with the Southern Illinois Miners. Overall, he has broadcasted close to 800 games in the league, including playoffs. During the baseball offseason, he serves as a play-by-play broadcaster for Manhattan College and the New Jersey Institute of Technology, with games being seen on ESPN+ among other platforms.
In addition to broadcasting, Jason works as a public address announcer for Seton Hall University women's basketball as well as Columbia University men's and women's basketball. He also spent nine years working "behind the scenes" as a freelance board operator and highlight editor at Westwood One for their coverage of the NFL, NCAA football, and NCAA basketball.
Jason graduated from Seton Hall in 2012 with B.A. in Communication Studies and a minor in Broadcasting & Visual Media.
