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Last Night In Woodbridge

What a difference a day makes.

The P-Nats bats came to life last night. The defense made the game closer than it should have been. But the pitching carried the game.

It took a couple of innings, but once the hitters figured out the soft-tossing Winston-Salem righthander, the offense came to life. The P-Nats struck for a pair of runs in third, highlighted by singles by Blake Kelso and Francisco Soriano and an Adrian Sanchez double that the Dash defense misplayed into a triple with both poor route running and a missed cutoff man.

Potomac hounded Chris Bassitt for another pair of runs in the fourth on four hits, as J.P. Ramirez fisted a one-out single over the shortstop to start the rally, took third on an errant pickoff throw, and scored as Kelso, Erick Fernandez, and Soriano connected for consecutive two-out singles.

Meanwhile, southpaw Matt Grace retired the first nine batter he faced, getting a little help from the defense as Jason Martinson erased a hit batsman in the 2nd with a 6-3 DP. On the second pass through the lineup, though, it was a tougher go — self-inflicted with a pair of walks in the 4th with a single sandwiched in between, but Grace erased the first free pass with a pickoff and Martinson helped again with a nifty 6-5 force at third on a grounder to his right.

Grace wasn’t so fortunate in the 5th as a leadoff walk and a double to left after a strikeout put two runners in scoring position. Grace got another strikeout and was on the verge of stranding another pair of runners when Stephen King botched the would-be groundout to let in two runs. He would put on another pair of runners in the 6th but worked out of the jam with another couple of K’s, for a season-high of eight strikeouts.

Potomac would score single runs in the 6th and 7th innings, with an error on a Fernandez grounder to third after a Kelso double in the 6th and a triple to right by Anthony Rendon that was hit so hard that the Dash outfielder, Brandon Short, a triple-A guy on rehab, got spun around and fell trying to track ti down.

Winston-Salem would make this a ballgame again with a two-run blast to right-center by veteran 1B/DH Dan Black off reliever Neil Holland in the 8th inning.

In the 9th, Rob Wort did his best imitation of Chad Cordero by loading the bases on a pair of doubles and a walk, but this 23-year-old can get the K when he needs it and struck out the side, including the final batter on a 3-2 count with two outs to bring his team-leading total to 81.

With the win, Potomac keeps pace with the rest of the Carolina League’s North Division as all four teams won on Saturday night. They remain 1½ games back.

The Dash and P-Nats conclude the series and the regular-season slate — Winston-Salem has won 14 of 19, and all 10 in North Carolina — with a matchup between Alex Meyer (2-0, 0.78) and Erik Johnson (1-2, 2.13).

6 Commments

  1. What’s the scouting report on Martinson and Rendon, now he’s been there a few games?

    Can Martinson’s bat play at higher levels? Speed and power seems great at SS, but where will he end up?

    How does Rendon look? And how does the ball sound off his bat; does it ‘sound’ like a big-leaguer?

    1. Martinson is improving as a SS and has a ton of power, but defensively he’s a step behind where you’d want him to be and offensively, he strikes out way too much. He’s especially vulnerable to changeups and offspeed stuff. That won’t play at AA , where pitchers can throw their secondary pitches for strikes and can pitch backwards if necessary.

      Last night was the second home game for Rendon, thus the second time I’ve seen him play. He’s only made solid contact twice — an at’em line drive to SS on Friday, the triple to right last night — but he has only swung at the first pitch once. He works the count like a major-leaguer.

      I suspect pitchers will try to pitch to him for now, but when he starts brutalizing them, they’re going to give him the Barry Bonds treatment. He bounced one on Friday night but defense is something you need a few games to judge, and with him playing every other game in the field, it’s going to take some time to get a feel. I’m not terribly worried about that, though, given that 3B is a reaction position, not a footwork position.

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