Pelicans win 2-0 to pull within a game of Carolina League title

While Jorge Soler is garnering much of the attention in the Carolina League best-of-five Mills Cup Championship Series, the player hitting behind him in Myrtle Beach’s batting order is playing his way to the series MVP award.

Cleanup hitter and catcher/DH Victor Caratini knocked in both of Myrtle Beach’s runs Monday night with a pair of doubles a night after knocking in the game-winning run in extra innings, and the Pelicans are a win away from their first league title since 2000.

Caratini’s RBIs in the first and ninth innings accounted for all of the scoring Monday, and four Myrtle Beach pitchers combined for a 2-0 shutout at Frawley Stadium that gave the Pelicans a commanding 2-0 series lead with the remaining three games, if necessary, at TicketReturn.com Field at Pelicans Ballpark.

Caratini was 2-for-3 with a walk Monday and is 5-for-8 in the series with the three big RBIs. The switch-hitter is now batting a robust .438 in the Pelicans’ five playoff games.

“He’s locked in right now from both sides of the plate,” said Wilmington manager Brian Buchanan. “He’s really the one that has been killing us. Maybe they should flip-flop the order there.”

Caratini has been feasting on fastballs, as his two doubles Monday and his game-winning lined single Sunday night all came on them. “I feel good at the plate,” Caratini said. “I’m seeing the ball well. I’m having good at-bats and hitting the ball hard. I feel everything is good and I’m looking to hit the fastball.”

Soler, the Chicago Cubs starting rookie right fielder who is on a rehab assignment in Myrtle Beach for an oblique injury for the remainder of the series, according to the Cubs, contributed another hit and is 2-for-8 in the series. His single in the ninth moved Pin-Chieh Chen into scoring position prior to Caratini’s second double.

Myrtle Beach’s scant run production in the series has been enough because of stellar pitching and solid – sometimes spectacular – defense.

The Pelicans have allowed just two runs and 10 hits in 19 innings and have made a handful of plays in the field worthy of ESPN SportsCenter top 10 distinction.

“You’ve got the top two teams in the league in pitching and ERA, and it’s a pitcher’s ballpark, so a lot of balls were hit hard that were caught the last two games,” Pelicans coach Mark Johnson said. “The defenses have played well and the bullpens have done a good job.”

Pelicans starter Tyler Skulina was dominant early, retiring the first seven batters he faced and striking out four in a row, including the side in order in the second inning.

The righty got into a jam in the fourth inning after allowing a soft single to right and walk to the first two batters. He got a strikeout looking for the first out before a wild pitch left runners at the corners.

After Cam Gallagher lined out to third baseman Chesny Young, Humberto Arteaga lined a shot into the left-center gap and center fielder Pin-Chieh Chen sprinted to make a fully-extended diving catch to save at least one run and likely two.

“That was huge,” Buchanan said. “Gallagher hit that ball hard at third base and the guy caught it, and Chen is a pretty good defensive outfielder so he’s made that play on us before. He’s run down quite a few balls on us. It was a great play, and that would have been huge if that had fallen in.”

Skulina allowed just one hit, two walks and a hit batter while striking out six and was pulled after throwing 74 pitches through five innings in favor of Daury Torrez.

“[The bullpen] has been great,” Skulina said, “especially when Daury Torrez is coming in after me. He’s been great all year, really consistent and a really good ground ball pitcher. … I knew it was going to be a good game as soon as I came out.”

Lopez slashed Torrez’s second pitch into the left-field corner for a leadoff double in the sixth. A walk followed a groundout, and a potential double-play grounder was booted by second baseman Daniel Lockhart to load the bases with one out.

Torrez fielded a tricky squibber in front of the mound to get a force at the plate and enticed a foul flyout to Soler in right field to end the inning. Torrez went two innings and allowed two hits and a walk.

Tyler Ihrig allowed a leadoff single in the eighth but struck out the next two batters and Lockhart made a fully-outstretched diving stop of a grounder in the first base hole and scrambled to throw from a knee and get Gallagher by a half-step to end the inning and join Chen on the game’s highlight reel.

“They’ve been doing that all year,” Johnson said of his defense. “Those are two really huge plays that saved the game.”

After pitching two innings to earn the win Sunday, David Berg returned Monday to pitch a perfect ninth with three groundouts to record the save.

“Tonight we swung at a lot of bad pitches,” Buchanan said. “In the fourth and sixth we had an opportunity to put some runs up and we didn’t get anything. I think there’s a fine line between being aggressive at the plate and swinging at bad pitches and we have to figure that out for the next three games. We swung at a lot of breaking balls in the dirt and pitches out of the zone early.”

The Blue Rocks stranded nine runners and were hitless in their eight at-bats with runners in scoring position. For the series, they have stranded 16 runners and are 1-for-20 with runners in scoring position.

“We have to take advantage of the opportunities they give us,” Blue Rocks shortstop Jack Lopez said. “I don’t know how many runners we’ve left on base. It’s easier said than done, as everybody knows, but we just have to keep on battling and at the end of the day we’ll see what happens.”

Chen and Caratini accounted for four of Myrtle Beach’s seven hits in Game 2, and Chen scored both runs. He lined a one-out single to right field in the first and Caratini followed by ripping a two-out double into the right field corner.

In the ninth, Chen led off with a single up the middle, Soler singled on a ground ball into left field and Caratini doubled on a deep fly to center field. Soler was thrown out at the plate, eschewing a slide on a close play.

The Pelicans will go for the sweep and league title at 7 p.m. Wednesday night, and will send Duane Underwood (6-3, 2.58 ERA) to the mound. Wilmington is scheduled to start Alec Mills (7-7, 3.02).

This story was originally published September 15, 2015 at 12:11 AM with the headline "Pelicans win 2-0 to pull within a game of Carolina League title."