The Winston-Salem Dash completed a three game sweep of the Potomac Nationals by taking both completed games tonight by scores of 6-5 and 5-3. Potomac has lost all seven games at BB&T Ballpark in 2012 by a combined score of 57-23.
Game 1: Winston-Salem 6, Potomac 5 After play was suspended last night, the Dash and Nationals opened play with the score 1-1 and the top of the fourth starting up. The game was suspended last night due to lightning and rain. Steven Upchurch came out for the Dash and Paul Applebee for the Nationals to take over pitching duties.
The first batter Applebee faced was Trayce Thompson who hit a solo homer to dead center to give the Dash a 2-1 lead in the bottom of the fourth.
Potomac battled back for a run in the top of the fifth with Francisco Soriano’s two-out RBI single scoring Randolph Oduber to tie the game again 2-2.
The Dash answered with runs in the fifth and sixth innings. Winston-Salem scored two in the fifth on an RBI single by Brady Shoemaker and Dan Black hitting a sacrifice fly to increase the lead to 4-2. The Dash scored one in the sixth with Marcus Semien hitting an RBI single to extend the advantage to 5-2.
Against Dash closer Nick McCully, Potomac mounted a two-out no on rally in the eighth inning. Ricky Hague was hit by a pitch and stole second. He scored on a David Freitas single to cut the lead to 5-3. Zach Walters then knocked a ball off the wall in right for a triple scoring Freitas to bring the Nationals within 5-4. Justin Bloxom followed with a double to the left-center gap that plated Walters to tie the game 5-5 heading into the bottom of the eighth.
But the Dash came back with a one-out solo home run by Juan Silverio off of Shane McCatty to regain the lead 6-5.
Potomac went down 1-2-3 in the ninth against Chris Bassitt who earned his second save of the season.
Despite giving up the lead, McCully (4-3) got the win for the Dash. McCatty (1-1) took the loss tossing two innings striking out two.
All five runs scored for Potomac with two outs. The game started at 7:31 Tuesday and nearly 24 hours later finished today.
Game 2: Winston-Salem 5, Potomac 3 The Dash started the scoring in the third off of lefty Robbie Ray who retired the first six batters of the game. Daniel Wagner and Miguel Gonzalez led off the inning with singles. Marcus Semien drove in Wagner on a broken bat single to the start the scoring. Carlos Sanchez hit a two-run triple to left plating Gonzalez and Semien to increase the Dash lead to 3-0. Brady Shoemaker finished the scoring in the third with a RBI double to give Winston-Salem a 4-0 advantage. It was his Carolina League leading 49th RBI of the season.
Matt Heidenreich started the contest for Winston-Salem and didn’t give a run until the fifth. With the bases loaded and one out, Blake Kelso grounded into a 6-4 fielders choice scoring Michael Taylor and then Kevin Keyes on a wide throw from second base to put the P-Nats on the board: Potomac trailed 4-2 after five.
Justin Bloxom blasted his Carolina League leading 12th homer of the season in the sixth to right to bring the P-Nats within 4-3 of the Dash.
In the bottom half of the sixth, Trayce Thompson hit a solo homer — his second of the day and tenth of the season — off of Potomac reliever Jimmy Barthmaier to put the Dash up 5-3. It was the first run of the season yielded by Barthmaier in his fifth appearance.
Terrance Marin came on in the ninth for Winston-Salem to earn to earn his second save of the year. He struck out two Nationals to secure a 5-3 victory and three-game sweep for the Dash.
Heidenreich (6-2) earns the win giving up three runs over six innings. Ray (3-3) takes the loss striking out six over five innings.
Not only is Potomac 0-7 in Winston-Salem but they are also 0-10 in the state of North Carolina.
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Chris Graham
