Wahoos Win, Move Into Tie For First Place

August 12, 2015

The Pensacola Blue Wahoos exploded offensively — like a bull bursting out of the chute at the buzzer — with Jesse Winker, Bryson Smith and Juan Duran hitting long home runs to left field right out of the gate to put the club up 8-0 after the first two innings.

The Birmingham Barons tried to hang on but Pensacola won 13-10 and the Blue Wahoos captured its sixth series of the second half in front of 4,012 at Pensacola Bayfront Stadium.

Pensacola manager Pat Kelly said in his 40-plus years of managing, Tuesday’s game was one of the “craziest.”

“It was one of the craziest ones I’ve been a member of in quite a while,” Kelly said. “We scored so early we tried to keep emphasizing to our team to keep scoring.”

Pensacola’s offensive explosion included its first multi-homer inning this season when Bryson Smith and Duran both hit dingers in the second inning. Smith crushed a three-run homer and Duran smacked a mammoth, two-out homer over the lights in deep left field to put Pensacola up, 8-0.

Blue Wahoos left fielder Jesse Winker, the Cincinnati Reds top prospect according to MLB Pipeline, started a two-out, three-run rally in the first inning with an opposite field, solo home run that put the Blue Wahoos up 1-0. Pensacola tied its season-high of three home runs in a game.

Marquez Smith then smashed a grounder to Birmingham third baseman Tony Thomas who threw it wide of first, allowing Smith to reach second. Blue Wahoos right fielder Juan Duran’s sharp grounder to diving Barons’ shortstop Tim Anderson drove in Smith, who got a big jump on the hit and beat the throw to home plate to make the score, 2-0.

Pensacola added a third run when Duran scored on third baseman Seth Mejias-Brean’s double on a line drive that fell between the center fielder and right fielder.

By the time Birmingham stopped Pensacola’s breakout at the plate in the fifth inning, the Blue Wahoos had 11 runs and 14 hits, while Birmingham had no runs and three hits.

At the end of the game, Pensacola compiled 13 runs and a season-high 19 hits. Pensacola also added eight extra base hits and leads the Southern League with 127 extra base hits since July 1.

Every Blue Wahoos starter earned a hit Tuesday. Pensacola center fielder Bryson Smith led the way with a 5-6 night with two runs scored and four RBIs, which included his three-run homer and a double. Smith, who has three homers for Pensacola, said the five hits is the most he’s recorded in his professional career.

Smith, who has played in Pensacola at least once a season since its inaugural season in 2012, said he clobbered a hanging slider.

“The wind might have blown it out. I don’t know,” Smith said jokingly. “That was a lot of runs. At some point, you just want it to stop and it did thankfully.”

In addition, the teams combined for 33 hits, which ties the franchise record set against Jacksonville on Aug. 10, 2013.

The Pensacola franchise records are 17 runs and 22 hits in a 17-1 victory in Jacksonville on April 21, 2014.

Meanwhile, right-hander Barret Astin took care of the Barons, throwing six innings, giving up five runs on nine hits, striking out two and walking one.

Birmingham mounted its own offensive attack scoring seven runs over three innings from the fifth through the seventh. It included a three-run blast by first baseman Jeremy Dowdy in the fifth inning and a solo blast by third baseman Thomas in the sixth.

Pensacola came right back with two runs in the seventh inning to go back up 13-7 when Winker doubled in Bryson Smith and Duran singled past the second basemen to drive in Winker.

Birmingham still had more runs to score after Jacob May launched a three-run homer in the eighth inning to bring the Barons back within three, 13-10.

Kelly said he was trying to resist using closer Zack Weiss, who now has a Southern League-leading 18 saves and had struck out the side four times in his last six outings. Weiss recorded the last five outs in the score fest.

“In the fourth inning their best player (shortstop Tim Anderson) comes out of the game and they get within striking distance of beating us,” Kelly said. “There were times in the seventh and eighth that I thought we might lose it. It was chaos.”

The Blue Wahoos head to play the Biloxi Shuckers tied for first place with the Mississippi Braves in the second half in the Southern League South Division at 26-19 (51-62). Biloxi, which moved into its new stadium June 6, won the first half of the South Division.

Bryson Smith, who came from Triple-A Louisville July 17, said he’s looking forward to the five-game series, since Pensacola has not had a winning half yet.

“Obviously, we can’t put a lot of pressure on ourselves,” he said. “It’s fun to be in the hunt. We just have to do our best. I’ve been here a couple years, so it’s really nice to be a part of all of this.”

The Pensacola Blue Wahoos travel to play a five-game series beginning at 6:40 p.m. Wednesday against the Milwaukee Brewers Double-A affiliate the Biloxi Shuckers.

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Written by William Reynolds · Filed Under News, Sports