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SL1 Pensacola Blue Wahoos

Ober Closes Home Schedule with a Beauty

August 28, 2019 - Southern League (SL1)
Pensacola Blue Wahoos News Release


Pensacola Blue Wahoos pitcher Bailey Ober
Pensacola Blue Wahoos pitcher Bailey Ober
(Pensacola Blue Wahoos)

A banner thanking Pensacola Blue Wahoos fans was unfurled before the game in front of the pitcher's mound, continuing a tradition for the season's home finale.

And then Blue Wahoos pitcher Bailey Ober presented his latest gem.

Ober, 24, a 6-foot-9 righthander, who has wowed since joining the team on Aug. 9, allowed just four hits in seven innings with 11 strikeouts Tuesday night, as the Blue Wahoos held off the Jackson Generals 3-2 in the deciding game of the last home series.

A crowd of 4,157, which pushed 2019 attendance past 296,000, watched one of the top pitching performances of the five-month season. Ober has now won three games in as many starts with the Blue Wahoos.

"It's pretty cool," said Ober, a former standout pitcher at the College of Charleston in South Carolina when drafted in the 12th round in 2017 by the Minnesota Twins. "It's been a blast being up here the past couple weeks and just trying to help out the team anyway I can.

"At the first of every game, you're going to face a little bit different hitters, so your plan is a little bit different each time out. No game is really the same. So it's always a little bit challenging each game, because you are facing new guys, new challenges, new pitches you have to throw."

So far, Ober has been able to master the challenge at a higher level.

He spent the majority of this season in Fort Myers, pitching for the Advance-A Fort Myers Miracle where he compiled an 4-0 record with a 0.99 earned run average in eight starts.

"You have a guy like that, you just give him the ball and he's going to throw six or seven innings," said Blue Wahoos manager Ramon Borrego. "That's really special. He helps the team gives you a chance to win every time.

"He is a kid with a lot of confidence. It is exciting to have a guy like that. We see something really special there."

Ober left with a 3-1 lead after the seventh. Relievers Stephen Gonsalves, a lefthander who pitched in seven games last season for the Twins, and Alex Phillips, who recorded his fifth save, followed in the final two innings to preserve the win.

Gonsalves escaped a jam in the eighth, after walking the first batter, throwing wild on a pickoff attempt, then hitting the next batter.

With runners on the corners, he struck out Daulton Varsho, got an infield groundout that scored the Generals' second run, then overcame a wild pitch, which moved both runners into scoring position, by striking out Seth Beer.

In the ninth, as most of the crowd remained and was standing, Phillips struck out Gali Cribbs Jr. to end the game with the tying run on second base and the go-ahead run on first.

The Blue Wahoos scored all three of their runs in the first inning.

"It is really special when you can win the final home game like that," Borrego said. "You can feel the fans were a little upset it was the last game. But you know, we're trying to stay in the playoffs and get back here for a couple more games."

OK, about that. The Blue Wahoos (74-60 overall, 36-28 second half), who matched their second-most wins in a season in franchise history, need help from the Biloxi Shuckers.

The Shuckers lead the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp by two games in the Southern League South Division second-half playoff chase. The Blue Wahoos are three games back.

Each team has five games left following a league-wide off day Wednesday. Each team plays a North Division team on the road in a five-game series this weekend to end the regular season.

The Blue Wahoos will win the wild card as Biloxi's playoff opponent if the Shuckers win the second half. The only way Pensacola wins the second half would be to finish 5-0 and have Biloxi and Jacksonville finish 1-4.

Biloxi wins tie breakers against both teams with better head-to-head records and percentages in the standings.

"We have a really good team right now, there's no doubt about that," Borrego said. "We're going to do our best."

The Blue Wahoos head to Montgomery on Thursday to face an emotional backdrop in a five-game series with the Biscuits.

The Biscuits were rocked by a horrific tragedy Tuesday when one of their pitchers, Blake Bivens, had his wife, his young son and his mother-in-law killed in a triple homicide in Keeling, Va.

The Danville (Va.) Register and Bee reported that police in Pittsylvania County, which encompasses Danville, arrested and charged the 18-year-old brother of Bivens' wife with three counts of first-degree murder.

It caused the Biscuits and Chattanooga Lookouts to cancel the teams' scheduled doubleheader Tuesday in Chattanooga, Tenn. The Biscuits are the first-half winners in the Southern League North Division and lead the Generals by 4.5 games in the second half.

The Generals, who will host Jacksonville in their series beginning Thursday, have secured the wildcard playoff spot as the team with second-best overall record. The Shuckers, meanwhile, will be in Birmingham to face the Barons.

The Blue Wahoos put themselves in a playoff position by going 17-8 in August.

"I was done in Fort Myers with a lot of these guys who are up here now, so it was pretty cool playing with them down there. And once I got the news I was playing up here, I was really excited," Ober said.

Ober's wife, infant child and his in-laws were in Pensacola Tuesday after traveling from Denver, Colo. to see him pitch.

He was staked to a 3-0 lead in the first inning. Alex Kirilloff led off with a single. He moved to second on a one-out walk to Trevor Larnach. Ryan Jeffers followed with a single to load the bases. LaMonte Wade hit an infielder grounder to score Kirilloff.

Mark Contreras' then lashed a two-out single to score Larnach and Jeffers.

From that point Ober breezed into the seventh inning, allowing just two baserunners.

"I have been able to stick to my strengths," Ober said. "I'm not going to blow too many guys away with my (fastball velocity), but I just attack guys with four pitches.

"It has been pretty comfortable since I know the catchers here pretty well, working with them in the past, and the pitching staff and pitching coaches. It has been pretty comfortable with not a lot of stuff outside the game changing."

BALLPARK MEMORIES

The Blue Wahoos honored 60 part-time and full-time staff employees Tuesday night who had been with the organization for at least five years.

It included ushers, concessions, beloved game emcee "Downtown Dave" Presnell and members of the front office staff led by team president Jonathan Griffith, who has been with the team since its inception in 2012.

Anna Catherine Morgan, who participated in the Pensacola's Got Talent contest in March, was chosen to sing the National Anthem for the final home game.

The Blue Wahoos' season-ticket holders were treated in special ways Tuesday with their names on the video board and an ice cream and desert bar provided for them in the Better Homes & Garden Lounge, along with contest giveaways.

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Images from this story

Pensacola Blue Wahoos pitcher Bailey Ober
Pensacola Blue Wahoos pitcher Bailey Ober
 Pensacola Blue Wahoos pitcher Bailey Ober
Pensacola Blue Wahoos pitcher Bailey Ober
  



Southern League Stories from August 28, 2019


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