If you’re charitable, you’d call the 1-0 win by the Wood Ducks a pitcher’s duel; if you’re cruel, you’d call it a battle of who could hit less.
The two teams combined for just 13 hits – eight of them with two outs, which probably more than anything else explains the low score.
Both teams had just one leadoff hit. Ian Sagdal got the first in the bottom of the 2nd and was picked off immediately. Jack Sundberg followed with another single and David Masters steered him over to third on a two-out hit-and-run that might have scored Sagdal.
Down East got its in the 3rd and the runner moved up 90′ twice on a pair of groundouts before the lone hit in scoring position: a double by Matt Lipka that was justbarelyfair on the left field warning track and drove in the game’s only run.
The sequence made a loser out of Grant Borne, who was not overpowering (two K’s) but very democratic (11 groundouts) over seven innings. He walked one and gave up six hits total. Jorge Pantoja and Gilberto Mendez both turned in a scoreless inning and allowed a bunt single while pitching the 8th and 9th innings respectively.
After the three-hit 3rd, the P-Nats reached base just twice more: a two-out single by Sundberg and a two-out double by Victor Robles, who managed not to get hit and made an outstanding play in the outfield to gun down* Arturo Lara trying for two, which in fairness, he probably would have gotten against just about any other centerfielder in the Carolina League.
* The doubts I had about his arm late last year have been erased; he’s much stronger and more accurate this season.
The loss, Potomac’s 34th, also eliminated them from the Carolina League North’s first-half division title race. Game Three of the four-game series is tonight with Hector Silvestre (5-2, 4.55) facing off against RHP Jonathan Hernandez (0-1, 17.18) for the Wood Ducks.