Southern League playoff preview

A team representing the South Division has won the Southern League championship nine of the past 10 seasons --  the lone exception being Birmingham in 2013. If that pattern continues this year, though, the team winning the title will be doing so for the first time.

First-half winner Biloxi -- in its inaugural season -- will face second-half winner Pensacola -- in its third year -- in a best-of-5 series for the right to represent the South Division in Finals.

The North Division pairing has Chattanooga, winner of the first half, against second-half winner Montgomery. The Biscuits have claimed seven Southern League championships, while the Lookouts have won one. Montgomery is part of the trend of South Division dominance, having won titles in 2006 and '07 out of the South, but the Biscuits have moved to the North to accommodate Biloxi's inclusion in the South for the 2015 season.

Biloxi Shuckers (78-59, South Division first-half champion) vs.
Pensacola Blue Wahoos (63-75, South Division second-half champion)

Biloxi won the season series, 14-6

Game 1 at Biloxi, Sept. 10 at 8:10 p.m. ET
Game 2 at Biloxi, Sept. 11 at 8:10 p.m. ET
Game 3 at Pensacola, Sept. 12 at 7:35 p.m. ET
Game 4 at Pensacola (if necessary), Sept. 13 at 5:05 p.m. ET
Game 5 at Pensacola (if necessary), Sept. 14 at 7:35 p.m. ET

For a feel-good story, it's hard to top Biloxi winning the first-half title in the South Division with a 43-25 record, despite starting the season with a 54-game road trip as MGM Park was being completed.

Pensacola's second-half victory, though, was pretty amazing as well.

The Blue Wahoos were a league-worst 25-43 in the first half and had finished no better than a half-game out of last place since joining the Southern League in 2013. Pensacola, though, turned things around in the second half to finish first by a game over Mississippi and Mobile with a 38-32 record, and a big reason was the turnaround at the plate by outfielder Jesse Winker.

Winker, who is Cincinnati's No. 1 prospect and ranks 29th on MLB.com's Top 100 list, struggled during the first half to live up to expectations. After hitting just three homers prior to the All-Star break, the 22-year-old left-handed hitter slugged 10 in the second half while batting .316 compared to .246.

Winker was also at his best with first place at stake at the end of the regular season, having games of two, four and three hits in September while finishing with a .282 batting average and .390 on-base percentage.

It was in August that Winker really turned things around, and Biloxi was one of the victims. He homered in four straight games at MGM Park as part of a five-game streak that was one shy of the league record.

"I didn't play the way I wanted to in the first half, but it's a long season," said Winker, the 49th overall pick in the 2012 Draft. "I knew it was just a matter of time before I got going. I believe in myself as a hitter."

While Winker needed to salvage his season in the second half, Milwaukee No. 1 prospect Orlando Arcia was consistent offensively and defensively throughout for Biloxi. The 21-year-old Southern League All-Star shortstop from Venezuela batted .307 with 52 extra-base hits and 69 RBIs while committing just 13 errors.

Arcia, ranked No. 12 among MLB.com's Top 100 Prospects, goes all out in the plate and in the field.

"He has an edge about him that's going to carry him for the rest of his career," Shuckers manager Carlos Subero said.

Chattanooga Lookouts (76-61, North Division first-half champion) vs.
Montgomery Biscuits (77-61, North Division second-half champion)

Chattanooga won the season series, 9-8

Game 1 at Chattanooga, Sept. 10 at 7:15 p.m. ET
Game 2 at Chattanooga, Sept. 11 at 7:15 p.m. ET
Game 3 at Montgomery, Sept. 12 at 7:35 p.m. ET
Game 4 at Montgomery (if necessary), Sept. 13 at 6:35 p.m. ET
Game 5 at Montgomery (if necessary), Sept. 14 at 8:05 p.m. ET

Max Kepler wasn't a major factor in the playoffs a year ago when Fort Myers won the Class A Advanced Florida State League title. The Minnesota Twins' No. 6 prospect will likely have to be this year, though, if Chattanooga is to give manager Doug Mientkiewicz a second championship in his third year as a Minor League manager.

Kepler, a 22-year-old from Germany, flew mostly under the radar as the Lookouts won the first-half title in the North Division with a loaded roster that included center fielder Byron Buxton, third baseman Miguel Sano and right-handed pitcher Jose Berrios.

But the left-handed hitting outfielder/first baseman ended up in the spotlight during a breakout season in which he was named SL Player of the Year, leading the circuit in on-base percentage (.416), slugging (.531) and OPS (.947).

"He's got a tremendous upside," Mientkiewicz said. "He's come a long way since he was signed at 16."

If Montgomery is to advance in the playoffs, the Biscuits will have to get Kepler out far more often than they did in the regular season. He hit .395 against them with a .509 on-base percentage and drove in 11 runs in 12 games while hitting four doubles and two homers.

Pitching, though, has been a Montgomery strength, and the Biscuits didn't play the Lookouts after July 21, a couple of weeks before they began a closing push of 21 wins in 29 games.

Left-hander Jaime Schultz, who led the league with 168 strikeouts in 135 innings while going 9-5, will start the series opener at Chattanooga, with right-hander Jacob Faria to pitch the second game.

Faria, promoted for the second half after dominating the Class A Advanced Florida State League, was 7-3 with a 2.51 ERA and had 96 strikeouts in 71 1/3 innings over 13 starts for the Biscuits.

The 10th-round choice by Tampa Bay in 2011 led the Minor Leagues in victories, going 17-4 with a 1.92 ERA overall.

"The season has exceeded my expectations tenfold," said Faria, 22. "But I put a lot of work in during the offseason, and it's paid off physically and mentally."

Now the pressure to win will be ramped up with the playoffs. Mientkiewicz says it's the time when you see whether a player has the "chip" to be a Major Leaguer.

"I challenged them at Fort Myers last year and they responded," said the World Series winner with the 2004 Boston Red Sox. "I've challenged them again and we'll see what happens. Rosters change, but the goal is still the same. This is when you learn a lot about players."

In brief

Power packed: The 31 home runs by Adam Brett Walker II were not only a modern Chattanooga record, but also the most in the Southern League since Bucky Jacobson hit that same number for Tennessee in 2003. Walker, a right-handed-hitting outfielder, homered in the regular-season finale to better the 30 homers by Mobile's Paul Goldschmidt and Carolina's Neftali Soto in 2011. Minnesota's No. 10 prospect also led the league with 106 RBIs -- another Lookouts record. He had a league-high 195 strikeouts in 133 games, though. The 23-year-old also had a .239 batting average, .309 on-base percentage -- thanks to 55 walks -- and a .498 slugging mark with a league-best 250 total bases.

One-two combo: Biloxi led the league with a 3.25 team ERA, and a big reason why was the Shuckers' righty-lefty combination at the top of the rotation. Right-hander Jorge Lopez tied for the league lead in wins while going 12-5 and his ERA of 2.26 was just a percentage point behind left-hander Tyler Wagner, who was 12-9 with league-best 2.25 ERA. The pair was also one-two in WHIP, with Lopez, voted Southern League Pitcher of the Year, at 1.10 and Wagner at 1.15. Wagner was 3-0 with a 1.44 ERA against Pensacola this season, and Lopez went 3-1 with a 2.35 ERA. Lopez, 22, is ranked as Milwaukee's No. 9 prospect and Wagner, 24, is No. 16.

Nearly perfect: When Pensacola closer Zack Weiss allowed an inherited Biloxi runner to score Sept. 4, it was his first blown save since May 20, breaking a string of 23 consecutive successful conversions. The right-hander led the Southern League with 25 saves in 27 opportunities after beginning the season by converting all five save chances with Class A Advanced Daytona. Weiss, 23, had 68 strikeouts to 14 walks in 52 innings for Pensacola, going 1-3 with a 2.42 ERA in 45 games. He was a sixth-round pick by Cincinnati in the 2013 Draft out of UCLA.