Three Salem Red Sox pitchers yielded nine walks to the Potomac Nationals on Thursday night at Pfitzner Stadium, leading to a 9-6 defeat in the rubber game of a three-game series.
The free passes began early in the contest as Dedgar Jimenez walked four batters with two outs in the first, sandwiched around a two-run single from Alec Keller to give Potomac (24-20) a 2-0 lead.
Salem (31-16) rallied with four runs in the third inning on an RBI single from Nick Longhi and a titanic three-run home run from Rafael Devers. The 19-year-old cleared all three levels of advertisements in right field on the estimated 435-foot blast. It was the fourth homer of the season for Devers, who increased his RBI total to 22 on the season.
Potomac, though, rallied back with three runs in the fourth inning against Jimenez. After loading the bases with one out, Osvaldo Abreu drove in a pair with a two-run single and was followed by a Jose Marmolejos RBI double to give the P-Nats a 5-4 edge.
Jimenez (2-3) was lifted after 3.2 innings, giving up five runs on six hits and five walks.
Jamie Callahan ceded a run in the fifth inning on a David Masters single before walking the bases loaded with one out in the sixth inning. Taylor Grover replaced Callahan and gave up a three-run double to Alec Keller in the first at-bat of his outing. Keller ended up a homer shy of the cycle and drove in five for Potomac.
Salem was able to push across single tallies in the sixth and seventh on RBI’s from Ben Moore and Nick Longhi, but was shut down after cutting the deficit to 9-6. Potomac pitching retired the final eight Red Sox hitters as R.C. Orlan recorded his fifth save of the year with a perfect ninth inning.
Matthew Spann (1-0) earned the win for the Nationals after giving up a run on two hits and three walks in three innings of relief.
Having dropped back-to-back contests, the Red Sox now continue their week-long road trip with the opener of a four-game series against the Lynchburg Hillcats on Friday night at 6:30 pm. Trey Ball (2-0, 1.86) will climb the hill for Salem against Justus Sheffield (3-1, 3.00) for Lynchburg. Follow along with all the action on the Salem Red Sox Baseball Network. Coverage with the Pregame Show driven by Haley Toyota begins at 6:45 pm.
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