Last Night In Woodbridge
Three Potomac pitchers combined on six-hit shutout, beating Winston-Salem for the first time in seven games, 5-0. The loss also halted the Dash’s nine-game win streak.
For the second straight outing, Adam Olbrychowski pitched into the seventh inning — a just-as-welcome development, given the toll on the ‘pen over the previous two nights — but against a much more potent offense. The 25-year-old showed no fear, working the ball inside (three HBP) and keeping the Dash batters off balance with his slow curve.
Though he allowed a baserunner in every inning, Olbrychowski also kept the ball on the ground, letting his defense help him with double plays in 3rd, 4th, and fifth innings and getting 12 of 20 outs on the ground total. He would give up just one extra-base hit, a double to leadoff hitter Marcus Semien with two outs in the 7th.
Meanwhile, the Potomac offense put together an impressive string of hits in the 2nd inning: five in a row, with three runners going from first to third and three crossing home plate. Were it not for a baserunning blunder by Kevin Keyes, it might have been a bigger inning.
The P-Nats would tack on one more run in the 5th as Francisco Soriano doubled, took third on a botched sacrifice, and came around to score on a double-play ball. They would finish the scoring in the eighth as Kevin Keyes launched yet another bomb to deep CF that could only score one of the two runners on base because with one out, they had to hold up in case it were caught.
Ryan Demmin took the ball from Olbrychowski and got the last out of the 7th, then turned it over to Cameron Selik. Though it wasn’t a save sitation, Selik closed out the game with five straight K’s before issuing a walk with two out in the 9th and then retiring the last batter on a popup.
With the win, Potomac improves to 9-14 and back into a tie for third place with the Frederick Keys. It’s a day game today with all signs pointing to Robbie Ray making his 2012 debut against Steve McCray.
Wow, Freitas is raking! But so is Leon at Harrisburg, so I guess we’ve got Freitas to enjoy in Woodbridge for the duration. The Nats probably don’t promote this soon anyway, baring crying need.
Combine the two and you’ve got a potentially better catcher than Ramos, alas, that’s why a catcher that can hit is like a model that can cook (sniff, sniff Norris .304/.327/.522, .995FA, 35% CS).
Great analogy, however a catcher that can hit/field is even harder to find! LOL
What is everyone’s thoughts on Keyes? I’ve only been to one P-Nats game this year, but I was relatively impressed by the power, but obviously unimpressed with the BA on the scoreboard. It seems weird to me that a guy with that much power and such a low BA is in the 7th hole.
An all-or-nothing hitter. When he makes contact, it’s solid. Got the game-winner today with nice piece of situational hitting.
Any projection as to when Rendon returns?
It has been about 4 weeks.
No official projection, and no word on what exactly was done to his ankle. I’m not expecting him in Woodbridge during the first half.
Luke-
Any chance you’re in Woodbridge right now? Just trying to figure out the score. Radio guy keeps saying it’s 5-5, but the online says it’s 5-4 P-Nats and Dash didn’t score a run in the 5th.
OK, they got on the same page after game was over. WS did score on a fielder’s choice in the 5th. P-Nats scored one in the 8th, winning 6-5.
It initially thought it was Bloxom that had dropped the ball, and the scoreboard operator thought there was an error on the play. Took them a long time to fix it online.