STATEN ISLAND, NY- Everything is working for the Bombers these days. Suddenly, a once dubious task now seems possible.

That’s because the Staten Island bats remained hot in an 8-3 triumph over Hudson Valley before 4,324 on Kids Night at Richmond County Bank Ballpark Thursday.

Their fifth consecutive win improved them to a season high 16 games over .500 (41-25). Combined with a Brooklyn 8-1 defeat at Aberdeen, suddenly the Bombers find themselves just two and a half games behind the Cyclones for the McNamara Division with a week to go in the regular season.

With a huge five-game series starting Saturday at Key Span Park, the Bombers now have a realistic chance to overtake their Verrazano rivals from Coney Island.

A three-run second highlighted by a two-run double off the left field wall by red hot backstop Jose Gil gave winning starter Adam Olbrychowski all he needed. Pitching in front of family and friends, the 20 year-old Malibu California native went a solid six innings giving up just a pair of runs while walking three and striking out two to notch his second victory of the season.

The key to arguably his most successful outing was his composure during his final inning of work when he ran into trouble loading the bases on a single and two walks with one out. A couple of batters after a wild pitch allowed Omar Luna to come in and score Hudson Valley’s second run, the righthander buckled down and got James Mayer to bounce out to third limiting the damage.

“That was huge. I knew that was my final batter because of the pitch count. So it was nice to get that final out,” the winning starter said after signing autographs and taking pictures with his personal cheering section.

Still up two, the Bombers quickly responded with three in the home half. Gil started it with a double. Walks to third baseman Ryan Wehrle and DH Justin Snyder loaded the bases with one out. After Taylor Holiday bounced into a 5-2 force out, Wehrle came home ironically on another wild pitch this time uncorked by Renegades’ reliever Bladimir Florentino.

The big blow in the frame came off the bat of second baseman Damon Sublett, who stroked an opposite field two-run double which put the Bombers up 7-2. It was the All Star snub’s league leading 49th and 50th RBI’s.

After Staten Island reliever Nick Peterson got five outs before giving way to Daniel Kapala, the Renegades got one back on an E4 from Sublett which allowed Mike McCormick to score from third with two out. The Hudson Valley catcher was a bright spot also with a 400 foot homer to left center off Obrychowski to get his team on the board in the fourth.

Some aggressive base running enabled the Bombers to get that run back when Holiday and Braedyn Pruitt executed a double steal attempt. With two out, Pruitt got caught in a rundown between first and second long enough to allow the streaking Holiday to swipe his club leading 17th base and restore a five-run lead.

Kapala worked around a one out walk getting Luna to bounce out to Gil, who made an accurate throw to first baseman Chris Raber which ended it.

Notes: A night removed from scoring 14 runs on 18 hits, the Bombers scored eight times on 13 hits with only three regulars failing to get a hit. … Holiday and Austin Krum each finished with three hits while Gil, Sublett and Raber all had two hits apiece and knocked in five of the club’s eight runs. Krum termed the catcher’s production “huge for us all season” afterwards. Since Aug. 19, Gil has six multi-hit games including one four hit night and is hitting .455 (15-for-33) with a homer, eight RBI’s and nine runs scored. … The teams combined to leave 34 runners on even though the game took less than three hours to play (2:50). … Staten Island tries to complete a sweep of the home-and-home at Hudson Valley tonight before their big series against Brooklyn kicks off tomorrow.

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