Panners Pummel Miners in ABL Opener
June 24, 2000, Daily News-Miner

By RICHARD LARSON

Having heard the horror stories about the wooden bats and the lack of hitting in the Alaska Baseball League, Ryan Garko made his debut performance as a Panner on Friday and wondered what all the fuss was about.

The Panners drilled 13 hits, including seven in the first two innings, in a 9-4 pounding of the Mat-Su Miners at Growden Park.

Garko, who arrived Thursday after playing in the College World Series for Stanford, was impressed.

"No kidding," Garko said. "I kept hearing things like nobody hits up there. But shoot, we put up, what, four or five doubles, a triple and a home run."

Garko provided the home run, drilling a solo shot over the left field fence to lead off the sixth inning. It was the Panners sixth home run of the season after they hit only 10 balls out of the park all last year.

Brooks Conrad, Nate Sickler and Kaulana Kuhaulua each had doubles in the first two innings. The Panners strung together five consecutive hits with two outs in the second inning to take a 5-0 lead.

"We came out with a bang," Conrad said. "Everybody came out swinging the bats. We took a big lead and put the pressure on them."

While the Panners (7-2, 1-0) were ripping the ball off Mat-Su starting pitcher Kris Lammers, David Gassner was shutting down the Miners (6-8, 1-2).

Gassner retired the first six batters he faced and allowed just two unearned runs on three hits in seven innings. He struck out four and walked one. In 13 innings of work this year Gassner (2-0) has yet to allow an earned run.

The Miners quickly realized that Gassner was just about unhitable. Both Blake Rutkowski in the third inning and David Griffin in the fourth tried to bunt for base hits, but were just as unsuccessful as their teammates who were swinging away. Rutkowski bunted the ball foul and Griffin was thrown out by Gassner.

"Gassner was really good tonight. He was throwing a lot of strikes," Conrad said.

Matt Rosenberg got the first hit off Gassner, lacing a double to right field in the fifth inning. The Panners also committed three errors in the inning leading to two runs by the Miners. The Miners added a pair of runs in the ninth inning off reliever Adam Heaps.

Last year the Panners lost the first time they faced each of the four other teams in the ABL. They immediately made sure that trend wouldn't continue again this year.

"We've been gearing up for the ABL season. We have been playing good ball coming into this game and we came out and did a good job tonight," Conrad said. "We've got some guys that can really swing the bat all the way up-and-down the lineup, guys that can hit for extra bases. And we have a lot of speed, everybody hustles around the bases."

Jonah Martin and Kuhaulua each had a pair of steals in Friday's game. Martin finished 2 for 3 with three runs scored and an RBI. Conrad was 3 for 4 with two RBIs. Chad Redfern was 2 for 4 with a triple, two runs scored and a run driven in.

Garko was 2 for 4 in the game, leaving him batting .500 with a slugging percentage well over 1.000 after his first game as a Panner.

"It was fun. I was excited to get up here and play," Garko said. "It is a little different than being at the World Series, but the game is the same and I don't approach it any differently than I did in Omaha."

June 24, 2000, Daily News-Miner