FIRST HALF ENDS: Biscuits ready to follow history and win second half

Logan Driskoll and the Montgomery Biscuits finished the first half of the Southern League season with a 36-33 record, five-plus games out of first. (File Photo)

By TIM GAYLE

The Montgomery Biscuits wrapped up the first half of the season with a 2-1, 11-inning win over the Rocket City Trash Pandas on Sunday, finishing in second place in the Southern League South Division at 36-33

The Biscuits finished 5.5 games behind first-half winner Pensacola in one of the wackiest first halves ever played in the Capital City. The first 69 games of the season included more than a handful of walk-off wins, walk-off losses, rallies for unlikely victories and collapses in unlikely losses.

“If I take the historicals of the four years that I’ve been here, this team is about a month ahead of schedule, which has been really encouraging,” said Montgomery manager Morgan Ensberg, now in his fourth season. “We’ve lost a lot of games in very strange ways. There’s been four or five walkoffs, there have been games where we’ve been ahead and ended up losing them. Statistically, it usually doesn’t happen in one concentrated time but we’ve had them.

Montgomery finished in third place in the Southern League in team hitting with an OPS (on-base plus slugging percentage) of .752, trailing just Pensacola and Tennessee in the eight-team league. Over the last 30 days, the Biscuits lead the Southern League in virtually every offensive category, including an OPS of .818.

The Biscuits also have the hottest hitter in the league. Third baseman Austin Shenton led the league in average (.323), hits (72), doubles (19) and home runs (14) and was third in RBIs (46). Shenton was one of only three hitters who finished above .300 in the first half of the season, along with Hayden McGeary of Tennessee (.302) and Biscuits’ catcher Logan Driscoll (.301).   

“Certain nights, we put it all together and it looks really good,” Shenton said. “We’re all continuing to improve. We’re getting better day by day and learning more about ourselves as players. You have to adjust and learn and this is the level where you really grow and mature as a baseball player. Sometimes that growth comes, not in front of winning, but it comes first in the progression of peoples’ careers.

While the hitting isn’t as consistent as it needs to be, the pitching is the biggest question mark. At least seven pitchers have been promoted to Triple-A Durham at some point this season, with four of them coming back to Montgomery as part of a pitching shakeup throughout the Rays’ system because of injuries. 

As a result, the Biscuits rank fifth in the eight-team league in earned run average at 4.55 while ranking second in shutouts (six) and third in saves (18 in 32 opportunities). Over the last 30 days, the team actually moved up to fourth in pitching despite a higher ERA of 4.85, while ranking first in shutouts and saves. 

“I’ve noticed significant improvement in all areas,” Ensberg said. “The hitting has come around where we’re able to put up a lot of runs in an inning, which is beneficial, and with our pitchers, the quality of pitches they’re throwing now is much closer now to Major League quality. And having that happen so quickly has also been really fun to watch.

Former Texas A&M star John Doxakis, who has transitioned from Biscuits’ starter to long reliever as part of the shuffle, is encouraged as the Biscuits prepare for the second half of the season. 

“As far as any minor-league team I’ve ever played on, this is the hardest working team I’ve played on, as far as guys helping each other out, sharing information, meshing together to make each other better,” Doxakis said. “So the work ethic is there, I think it’s just a matter of clicking together as a team where we pitch well as a team and we hit well.”

Between Ensberg and previous Biscuits’ manager Brady Williams, Montgomery has reached the playoffs in each of the last seven seasons (minor league baseball was canceled in 2020), but only won the first half of the season once (in 2019). 

A team can qualify for the Southern League playoffs either by finishing in first place in the second half of the season, as Montgomery did five times, or finishing in second place behind the first-half winner.

The second half of the season starts on Wednesday at Riverwalk Stadium at 6:35 p.m. against first-half winner Pensacola.