SOUTHERN LEAGUE PLAYOFFS: Biscuits fall in Game 1 to Pensacola

Blue Wahoos’ Jake Thompson is congratulated rounding third by Kevin Randel after his 2-run homer in the second inning to help defeat the Biscuits in Game 1 of the Best-of-3 series at Riverwalk Stadium. (Tim Gayle)

By TIM GAYLE
The last four weeks of the Southern League’s regular season featured a red-hot Montgomery team, which led the South Division for the last 25 days of the season by winning 19 of 22 games during that stretch.
Would the Biscuits be hot enough to overcome their dreaded playoff curse?
They weren’t on Tuesday as defending league champion Pensacola hammered the Biscuits, 5-2, in the opening round of the Southern League Divisional Playoffs at Riverwalk Stadium.
Montgomery, making its eighth consecutive playoff appearance, lost for the first time since 2018 in home playoff openers, including last year’s 5-2 win over the Blue Wahoos in the first game of a best-of-three series.
Pensacola won the second and third games last season at Blue Wahoos Park. The divisional playoffs now move to Pensacola, where the Blue Wahoos will host the second game on Thursday at 6:05 p.m. A third game, if necessary, will be played on Friday.
The winner of the divisional playoff series will advance to the Southern League Championship Series, which begins Sunday against the winner of the North Division series between Chattanooga and Tennessee. Tennessee won the first game, 3-1, on Tuesday.
Pensacola, which won 14 of 21 during the last month in its futile chase to catch Montgomery, paid back the Biscuits on Tuesday with more extra-base hits (six) than singles (four), battering the Biscuits early, then answering Montgomery’s only rally with another barrage that silenced the crowd of 2,817.
The Blue Wahoos hit 163 home runs this season, second most in the league behind Tennessee and the seventh most since the current format of the Southern League was established in 1964. Pensacola (79-57) jumped on Montgomery starter Patrick Wicklander early, using a double by Bennett Hostetler and a two-run home run to right by Jake Thompson in the second inning for an early lead.
Hostetler added a solo blast to center field in the third for a 3-0 lead, then countered a Biscuits’ rally with a double by Paul McIntosh in the fifth, followed by a towering shot by Hostetler that left fielder Tristan Peters glanced at but never moved as the ball carried deep over the fence.
Montgomery (80-58) was just 2 for 7 with runners in scoring position, leaving a pair of runners stranded in both the first and third innings. Tanner Murray’s one-out double in the third drove in a run, but the Biscuits missed an opportunity to tie the game with a popup and a groundout.
In the fourth, catcher Kenny Piper hit a towering home run to left to lead off the inning, but the Biscuits struggled all night against the Blue Wahoos’ pitching, with four of the final five batters striking out.
Wicklander didn’t make it out of the fourth, getting the first two batters out before leaving the game unexpectedly. Five relievers finished the game for the Biscuits, with the final four pitching an inning each.   
Now, the team with the most wins in the Southern League this season will have to find a way to win two games to earn a shot at the championship. Since winning back-to-back Southern League titles in 2006 and 2007, the Biscuits have not won a postseason series in eight attempts. 
Every Southern League team except the three-year-old Rocket City Trash Pandas has earned a berth in the championship series since the Biscuits’ last appearance under the current format.