The Lynchburg Hillcats dropped a pitchers’ duel, 3-1, to the Potomac Nationals Saturday night at City Stadium. Hillcats starter Jarett Miller gave up two runs in a career-high seven innings but was bested by Potomac’s Blake Schwartz, who threw a career-high eight innings of one-run ball. A Robby Hefflinger RBI-groundout broke up the shutout in the seventh.
Miller gave up both runs in the first innings. Francisco Soriano walked to lead off the ball game and was able to score from first on a double by Michael Taylor. After a wild pitch got Taylor to third, Cutter Dykstra drove him in with a sacrifice fly to center field. Miller (3-3) gave up just three hits over the next six innings but was stuck with the loss.
The Hillcats’ (25-21) offense was silenced by Schwartz (3-1), who carried a perfect game into the fifth inning. The chase for perfection was broken up on an infield single by Hefflinger on a low throw by 3B Cutter Dykstra to lead off the fifth but Hefflinger was stranded. Schwartz gave up one run on two hits in eight innings without walking a batter and striking out three.
The scoring stalled until the bottom of the seventh. In the top half of the inning, Hefflinger showed off his arm with a strike to the plate to cut down Caleb Ramsey, who barreled into catcher Shawn McGill, but he held onto the baseball despite tumbling over backwards.
Emerson Landoni led off the Hillcats seventh with a triple and scored two batters later on a hard hit groundout by Hefflinger.
Potomac (24-23) added an insurance run off Nate Hyatt in the ninth. Hyatt hit the leadoff hitter Adrian Nieto and Keven Keyes singled. After a sacrifice bunt and an intentional walk, Cole Lionida hit a fly ball to deep center that Matt Lipka ranged over to catch, bit Nieto tagged and scored for the breathing room.
The Hillcats look to win the series in the rubber match Sunday. It’s the Second Annual Paint the Park Purple Day at City Stadium. Gates open at 1pm for a 2:05pm first pitch and the first 500 fans through the gates will get a free T-shirt courtesy of Bee Line Towing, Relay for Life and The American Cancer Society. A.J. Holland (3-2, 3.18) takes the mound for the Hillcats against Robbie Ray (3-2, 2.42) for Potomac. If you can’t make it to the game join Erik Wilson and Jake Levy for all the play-by-play action beginning with the Hillcats On-Deck Show, powered by Honda/Suzuki of Lynchburg, going live at 1:40pm on 97.9 FM The Planet and lynchburg-hillcats.com.
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Chris Graham
