Myrtle Beach Pelicans rally to top Frederick, even series
After getting into an early hole, the Myrtle Beach Pelicans got a break in the fifth inning.
They didn’t waste it.
Frederick left fielder John Ruettiger missed on a diving attempt at a shallow fly ball in the fifth, which resulted in a Carlos Penalver bases-clearing triple as Myrtle Beach tied the game. Newcomer Chesny Young added two RBI singles to propel the Pelicans to a 6-4 win over the Keys at TicketReturn.com Field at Pelicans Ballpark, evening the three-game series 1-1.
“Guys had to get on base first. But this season, [Penalver] has been clutch when the bases have been loaded. He has about 15 RBIs with the bases loaded,” Myrtle Beach coach Mark Johnson said. “But, yeah, we caught a break with the outfielder trying to make a diving catch and it goes by him and we get three runs. You know, momentum is everything and it turned to our side. We didn’t think we were gonna get much going tonight.”
Young had an RBI single in the sixth and eighth inning, and also scored on a wild pitch later in the eighth as the Pelicans extended their lead to 6-3. Young has been on a tear since being called up from Class-A South Bend on May 12 as he has gone 9-for-21 (.429) in five games in Myrtle Beach.
“Chesny stepped right into that No. 2 spot [in the lineup] and has done a great job,” Johnson said.
Pelicans starter Jonathan Martinez (2-1) recovered after allowing a three-run home run to Tucker Nathans in the first inning. Martinez allowed three runs on four hits, one walk and two strikeouts over six innings for the victory.
“He started out a little elevated in the zone with his fastball, but he seemed to make better pitches as the game went on,” Johnson said of Martinez. “He started locating down with his secondary [pitches] a little better. He was progressively better; it’s tough to start from a three-run hole but he threw up the zeros after that.”
Meanwhile, James Pugliese provided two shutout innings out of the Myrtle Beach bullpen in which he allowed just one hit and struck out four for his third save of the year.
“We got a great bullpen performance from Pugliese,” Johnson said. “He threw the ball really well and we got a win.”
Meanwhile, Myrtle Beach (24-13) didn’t have any problems seeing the ball as it tallied 10 hits, but the Pelicans had some issues capitalizing as they stranded 12 runners.
It was enough to get the job done.
“You have days where you don’t get big hits and manufacture runs,” Johnson said. “But, you know, on the same hand you catch a break and you score three runs on a missed play by an outfielder and you scratch one out.”
Keys pitching coach Kennie Steenstra was tossed by home plate umpire Chase Eade in the eighth inning, and Frederick reliever Dylan Rheault was tossed by Eade in the ninth.
Myrtle Beach will look to take its first series of the year with Frederick (21-19) as the Pelicans host the Keys in the series finale at 7:05 p.m. Thursday.
“They’ve got some pretty good bats and the pitchers we’ve seen threw strikes,” Johnson said of Frederick. “We’ve only seen them twice so we don’t know a whole lot about them but it seems like they’ve got a pretty decent lineup.”
Contact MAX McKINNON at 626-0302 or on Twitter @mmckinnonTSN.
This story was originally published May 20, 2015 at 11:36 PM with the headline "Myrtle Beach Pelicans rally to top Frederick, even series."