The month of May proved full of firsts with the Blue Wahoos.
For the first time in club history, the Blue Wahoos swept the Southern League dual awards, after Karson Milbrandt was named pitcher of the month in May and outfielder Fenwick Trimble was named player of the month. The league announced the honors Thursday.
Since 2021, coinciding with Major League Baseball taking over the minor leagues, the Southern League has recognized both a pitcher and position player for monthly honors. Prior to that, the league only named an overall player of the month.
Milbrandt, who was elevated June 2 to the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp, will make his Triple-A level debut on Saturday night against the Nashville Sounds in Jacksonville’s VyStar Ballpark. In Milbrandt’s final outings for the Blue Wahoos, he went 4-0 with a miniscule 0.94 earned run average in five starts.
He also went 27.0 scoreless innings, the second longest streak of not allowing a run in team history.
Trimble batted .303 with a .545 slugging percentage in May with a Southern League best eight doubles and 59 total bases. He is the first Blue Wahoos position player since Jesse Winker in 2015 to win a monthly honor. Prior to 2021, when just one award existed, former Blue Wahoos pitcher Tyler Mahle earned player of the month honors in 2017 after he threw the first perfect game in April 2017 in the past half-century of Southern League baseball.
Since the separate pitcher of the month award was added in 2021, Milbrandt joins Patrick Monteverde (2023), Evan Fitterer (2025) and Thomas White (2025) in earning this award.
Both Milbrandt (No. 9) and Trimble (No. 19) rank among the Miami Marlins’ top 30 prospects. They played a big role in the Blue Wahoos compiling a 16-11 record in May to get into contention for a first half Southern League division win.
One of those wins was a record-setting one that occurred May 27th at fabled Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama. The Blue Wahoos blasted their way to a 23-4 win in “The Rickwood Game’’ a special once-a-year game between the Birmingham Barons and a Southern League opponent at historic Rickwood Field.
The Blue Wahoos, taking on the alter identity as the Pensacola Seagulls in honor of the former team in the Negro Leagues, set a franchise record for most runs, most hits (26) and most home runs (7) in a game. Trimble had one of those home runs, part of going 5-for-6 – matching the club record for most hits in a game that is shared by four others.
Trimble, a fourth round pick by the Marlins in 2024 and a former James Madison University player, has raised his average from .185 on April 21 to .274 heading into Thursday’s night’s (June 4) game against Chattanooga.