Wooten slugs P-Nats to Mills Cup lead

If you've been paying attention to John Wooten's performance in the Carolina League playoffs, Tuesday's outing comes as no surprise.

The Nationals prospect slugged a pair of two-run homers to power Potomac to a 12-7 victory over Myrtle Beach and a 2-1 lead in the best-of-5 Mills Cup Finals.

Wooten's first homer staked the P-Nats to a 2-0 lead in the first inning. After the Pelicans scored six times in the third to surge in front, 7-2, the 23-year-old first baseman capped a six-run fourth with another two-run blast.

"I was looking to get a pitch in the heart of the plate that I felt like I could hit hard, and I got one," Wooten said of his second long ball. "It was a fastball. [Sam Wolff] had really good stuff, he just left a fastball over the plate, I just got the barrel of the bat on it and hit it good.

"It was really exciting to put a cap on that inning and give us a one-run lead after going down 7-2."

With a Carolina League-leading three homers and eight RBIs, Wooten has been a large part of the P-Nats' postseason success.

"I feel good in the box," the East Carolina University product said. "I've been getting some pitches to hit and the ones that I've been able to hit that have been around the middle of the zone, I haven't been missing them for the most part, knock on wood. It's just one of those things that I feel like I've been getting pitches to hit. It's been really exciting and really fun."

Having helped the Nationals move within one win of their first Carolina League championship since 2010, Wooten feels he and his teammates need to go out and not get caught up in the moment.

"I think it's really easy to look at it and say, 'We've got two games left and all we have to do is win one,' but I don't feel like that's how our team is looking at it," he said. "I feel like our team is saying, 'Let's go out there and take care of business as best we can.' We don't have the type of guys to say, 'We're just going to come out and win because we're supposed to.' We have a team of guys that competes every single play and every single pitch."

With Wolff (0-1), who finished sixth in the league with a 3.37 ERA, facing Potomac's Matthew Spann, who had a 3.81 regular-season ERA, odds were in favor of another low-scoring game. Instead, the teams combined for more runs through three innings than they did in the first two games.

"If you would have told me that was how it was going to play out, I don't know if I would have believed you," Wooten said. "It was just a crazy game and it was crazy that it worked out the way it did. That was one of the most exciting games that I've been a part of in a good long time."

After Spann surrendered five runs on eight hits in 2 2/3 innings, Kylin Turnbull held Myrtle Beach in check, allowing two runs on three hits while striking out eight over 5 1/3 frames. That performance, Wooten said, made it possible for the Nationals to come back.

"Turnbull came in and did an unbelievable job," he said. "Whenever you have a pitcher going out there and throwing up zeros, it gives the offense a little bit of, 'OK, we can get back in this thing.' It was just an unbelievable effort."

Mike McQuillan added a two-run homer and scored twice for Potomac, while Isaac Ballou also contributed two RBIs. The Nats host Game 4 on Wednesday.

David Lyon slugged a grand slam and 17-year-old shortstop Michael De Leon homered and drove in three runs for the Pelicans.