Myrtle Beach Pelicans one win from first Carolina League title since 2000

The Myrtle Beach Pelicans are hoping to celebrate a Carolina League championship with their fans at TicketReturn.com Field at Pelicans Ballpark for the first time in the franchise’s 17-season history.

And they have three chances to do it, if necessary, beginning Wednesday night at 7 p.m.

The Pelicans return to their home park with a 2-0 lead in the best-of-five Mills Cup Championship Series after taking the first two games against the Wilmington Blue Rocks at Frawley Stadium by the scores of 3-2 and 2-0.

Myrtle Beach is trying to win its first Carolina League championship since back-to-back titles in its first two seasons as a franchise in 1999 and 2000.

It was forced to share a title with Wilmington in ’99 after the scheduled deciding game in Myrtle Beach was canceled because of Hurricane Floyd, and won the 2000 title on the road in Lynchburg, Va.

The Pelicans have an impressive run of starting pitchers who will try to clinch the title, beginning Wednesday with Duane Underwood Jr., one of the top 10 prospects of their parent club, the Chicago Cubs, according to both Baseball America and MLB.com, who is 6-3 with a 2.58 earned-run average this season.

He will be followed Thursday, if necessary, by Brad Markey, who has been nearly unhittable since his call-up from Low-A South Bend with a 7-0 record and 1.15 ERA, and Friday by Jonathan Martinez (9-2, 2.58).

The Blue Rocks are slated to counter Wednesday with righty Alex Mills (7-7, 3.02), then lefty Matthew Strahm (1-6, 2.78) and Game 1 starter and righty Zach Lovvorn (4-5, 3.93).

“Anytime you get to start a series 2-0 it’s good, but they’ve got two really good starters coming up also with Mills and Strahm,” Pelicans manager Mark Johnson said, “so we’re not taking anything lightly and we’re going to go into it just like we did in Game 1.”

The Pelicans are expected to have the services for the remainder of the series of Cubs starting rookie right fielder Jorge Soler, who is on a rehab assignment for an oblique injury.

Soler has played three postseason games with the Pelicans and is batting.300 (3-for-10) with two runs scored, two doubles and a run driven in. He has walked twice and struck out four times.

Soler, 23, is potentially a future star. The 6-foot-4-inch, 215-pound right-handed batter signed a nine-year, $30 million contract with the Cubs as an amateur free agent in 2012 after defecting from Cuba in 2011.

He has hit .265 with 18 doubles, one triple, seven home runs and 42 RBI in 90 major league games, striking out 111 times while drawing 29 walks.

The Blue Rocks aren’t likely to pitch around Soler in the No. 3 spot in the batting order because the Pelicans’ hottest hitter is behind him. Catcher and switch-hitting cleanup hitter Victor Caratini is 5-for-8 in the series with two doubles and three RBIs and is batting .438 in the Pelicans’ five playoff games.

“He’s been ready to hit,” Johnson said. “He’s gotten pitches and he hasn’t missed them and he’s been really clutch for us. He has been a run producer throughout the year. He’s got [34] doubles and he’s driven in runs when we’ve needed them.”

Wilmington, a Kansas City affiliate, is in its first Mills Cup Championship Series since 2004 and it last won the league championship when it shared the title with Myrtle Beach in 1999 as a Boston farm club.

Myrtle Beach’s last title was two affiliations ago. It won its two titles as part of 12 seasons in the Atlanta Braves organization and lost in the championship series last year in its fourth season as a Texas Rangers affiliate.

Myrtle Beach (85-58) has been solid all season, winning 41 and 40 games in the first and second halves, respectively, and going 4-1 in the playoffs.

The Blue Rocks (64-79) won the Northern Division first half title at 38-32 and reached the championship series despite recording the worst second-half record in the Carolina League at 24-45, which was also the worst record in a single half in franchise history.

The Blue Rocks won the first half on the strength of a strong starting rotation, though they lost much of their top pitching prospects to in-season call-ups. They were shut out a franchise-record 20 times this season, and averaged just two runs per game during a 14-game losing streak in the second half.

“We’re definitely up against the wall but we trust each other,” Blue Rocks shortstop Jack Lopez said. “We do play good in Myrtle Beach. We’ll come back Wednesday and go back out there and battle.”

Myrtle Beach went 10-8 against Wilmington in the 2015 regular season, including 6-4 at Pelicans Ballpark.

The Blue Rocks lost the Mills Cup series opener in extra innings and trailed by one through eight innings in the second game, and are 1-for-20 with runners in scoring position in the series.

“We’ve played these guys tough all year,” Wilmington manager Brian Buchanan said. “We’re in all the games. We just need something to go our way right now. … We’re battling. We’ve been in both games; we just haven’t been able to get the big hit.”

This story was originally published September 15, 2015 at 7:42 PM with the headline "Myrtle Beach Pelicans one win from first Carolina League title since 2000."