With a bases-loaded error, Potomac completed an unlikely comeback from a 4-0 deficit for a 5-4 walkoff win over Winston-Salem to start the second half.
Early on, it looked like an early night for LHP Robbie Ray, who was tagged for three runs on five very hard-hit balls in the first inning, including a leadoff HR by Marcus Semien.
But the southpaw survived the first and got in each of the next two innings, retiring eight of ten batters before the Dash got to him in the fourth, making Ray pay for his second hit batsmen with an RBI double to left to open up a 4-0 lead. Ray would labor through six innings, giving up four runs (three earned) on eight hits and two walks.
Rehabbing Mark DeRosa started the game at third base, but was an uneventful 0-for-2 with a strikeout (looking) and line-out to right field. Defensively, he started the first of the two double plays.
His replacement, however, was the player of the game. Blake Kelso came in for DeRosa in the top of the 6th and broke up the Winston-Salem shutout bid with an RBI single in the bottom of the same inning. In the 7th, Kelso cleared the bases to tie the game at 4-4 with his team-leading third triple of the season.
After Ray, surgically repaired Adam Carr came on in the 7th for his first appearance north of Florida in more than a year. The burly righthander looked a little tentative at times, but allowed just one baserunner (a walk) over an inning and 2/3rds while hitting 92 on the gun with the heat, the low-to-mid 80s with the breaking stuff, and mid-’70s with his hair.
Neil Holland followed Carr with two outs in the 8th and stranded Carr’s baserunner, then tossed two 1-2-3 frames in the 9th and 10th innings to set up one of the more bizarre walk-offs in recent memory.
David Freitas smacked a one-out double down the LF line and was promptly replaced on the basepaths by Francisco Soriano. The next batter, Jason Martinson grounded one to third, but Soriano’s stop-start-stop baserunning helped induce the third Winston-Salem error of the night. A wild pitch moved up the runners and after challenging Michael Taylor, the Dash walked him to load the bases for Stephen King.
King, who had singled and doubled earlier in his first game as a P-Nat since last May, had a shot at redemption for running himself into an out at third following his double. Instead, he chopped the ball slowly to the mound. But the throw from the Winston-Salem reliever was high and wide, and the plate umpire ruled that Francisco Soriano had slid under the catcher’s foot when he lunged after the ball, giving Potomac the 5-4 win on the fourth Dash error of the night.
The three-game series continues tonight (weather permitting) with Trevor Holder (3-2, 3.83) as the starter for Game Two, opposed by Jon Bachanov (5-1, 3.71) for Winston Salem.