Plenty Of Hits Not Enough To Extend Rocks' Winning Streak
WOODBRIDGE, VA - After winning a season-high six games in a row, the Wilmington Blue Rocks finally dropped a game as they fell to Potomac by a 8-3 final on Thursday. Yender Caramo, the starter for the Blue Rocks, had his shortest start of the season, as he went just 3.0 innings, allowing four runs before being lifted. With a loss on Thursday by the Frederick Keys, the Rocks still hold a 3.5 game lead in the race for a first-half Carolina League North crown.
Wilmington got on the board first against Potomac, but the Nationals did not take much time to tie the score and, eventually, take the lead. In the bottom of the first, Stephen Perez reached on a single, the first hit of the day for Potomac. With Isaac Ballou at the plate, Caramo threw a wild pitch, which moved Perez up to second. Catcher Sanitago Nessy thought he might have a chance to nab Perez at second, but he ended up throwing the ball away, allowing him to get all the way to third. Ballou then did his job by grounding out to Ramon Torres with the infield back, scoring Perez and tying the score at 1-1.
Potomac took the lead for good in the very next inning, and they did all of their damage with two-outs. Caramo got two groundouts to start the frame, but then gave up four consecutive singles, leading to two runs. Jimmy Yezzo and Estarlin Martinez reached on back-to-back singles before Narciso Mesa snuck a groundball back up the box to score Yezzo and give Potomac a 2-1 advantage. Christopher Bostick then accounted for the fourth straight hit of the inning, that knock scored Martinez and made it 3-1.
The P-Nats opened this contest up in the fifth as they scored four times off of a combination of Estarlin Coredero and Andrew Edwards. Cordero started the inning and gave up a walk to Drew Ward and a single to Yezzo before being lifted with runners at the corners and just one out. Edwards was greeted by a Martinez safety squeeze. Edwards fielded the ball of the mound but his flip to Nessy at the plate was not in time as Ward scored and made it 5-1. After Edwards hit Bostick with a pitch, Perez got the big blow of the inning, a two-run single making it 7-3. An Edwards wild pitch would score Bostick making it 8-3 before he Ballou to strikeout, ending the big frame for Potomac.
The Rocks did a get a solo homer in the first inning for the second night in a row. On Wednesday, Jack Lopez went deep with one-out, and on Thursday Torres did it a batter sooner as he hit his first homerun of the year, Wilmington's first leadoff-homer of the season, and made it 1-0 Blue Rocks. Wilmington had a major threat set-up in the third inning. They loaded the bases with one out and Carlos Garcia came up with an RBI-hit for the second night in a row, this one a weak groundball through the right side of the infield scoring Mauricio Ramos from third. The bases were still loaded for Logan Moon, but he could not get the big hit the Rocks needed as he grounded into a 6-4-3 double play to end the frame, as the Rocks' threat went by the wayside. They would later add runs on RBI singles by Garcia and Robert Pehl.
The Rocks and Nationals finish up this four-game series on Friday as the Rocks turn to the 14th ranked prospect in the Royals' system according to Baseball America, Eric Skoglund. Skoglund has been one of the most consistent starters for Wilmington this season, posting a 3-1 record with an impressive 2.12 ERA. The Nationals will turn to a guy making his Advanced-A debut, Phillips Valdez. Valdez started eight games at Low-A Hagerstown this season, going 5-2 with a miniscule 1.47 ERA. First pitch from Pfitzner Stadium is scheduled for 7:05 p.m.
PEBBLES OF KNOWLEDGE:
Ramon Torres' homerun in the first inning on Thursday was not just the Rocks' first leadoff homer of the year, but it was their first leadoff homer in quite some time. In order to find the last time a Blue Rock hit a leadoff jack, you have to go all the way back to July 19, 2013 when Justin Trapp accomplished the feat at Myrtle Beach's Ticketreturn.com Field. There was no shortage of leadoff homers that season for Wilmington. That was the last of Trapp's four leadoff homeruns that season. He was the only Blue Rock to hit a leadoff homerun in 2013.
As hot as the Rocks were during their six-game winning streak, the one thing that remains a thorn in the side of this team is the double play. Wilmington grounded into two more double plays on Thursday, including one by Logan Moon to end a bases loaded threat in the third inning. With those two double plays, the Rocks extended their League-leading total to 49 twin-killings. To put that number into perspective, the team with the second-most double plays this year, the Frederick Keys, have only hit into 36 doubles plays, 13 less than the Rocks who continue to find ways to give the opponents two-outs on one swing of the bat.
With the loss, Wilmington was unable to extend their season-best winning streak any further than six games. The Rocks will have to wait even longer to find that elusive seven-game win streak, as they have not achieved that feat since May of 2011. Four seasons ago, Wilmington went on a seven-game winning streak that spanned from May 16-22. That streak also ended in a loss to a CL North foe, but that time it was the Frederick Keys. Wilmington scored 38 runs over that winning streak, and also won a game Salem in a 1-0 shutout.
Despite the loss, the Rocks were not without any bright spots. Carlos Garcia and Cody Stubbs continue to rake against Potomac pitchers. Garcia collected his first hit at the Advanced-A level on Wednesday night, along with his first two RBIs. On Thursday, he added to those totals, going 3-for-5 with an RBI. In the last two contests, Garcia is 6-for-9 with three RBIs, a run, a double, and no strikeouts. Meanwhile, Stubbs seems to be seeing the baseball more like a beach-ball since getting called-up to Wilmington. Stubbs went 3-for-3 with a couple of doubles in Wednesday's game-two win, and added to his numbers on Thursday. Stubbs went 4-for-5 with two more doubles. The lone out recorded off of his bat was a deep fly out to the warning track.
THEY SAID IT:
Manager Brian Buchanan
"I think it was just one of those games. (Yender) Caramo just didn't have it and then it snowballed from there. We let them off the hook there in the second with that double play with the bases loaded. I think that killed us. I think (John Simms) was one or two batters away from getting taken out of that game. (Logan Moon) hit it hard, it was just right at him. I think that gave them a little momentum from there on out. We swung the bats well. We had a lot of quality plate appearances, we just couldn't push any runs across."
"I don't think there's anything to (the double plays). I don't think it bothers them. They're aggressive and, like I've been saying all year, they stick with the approach. You're going to hit into some double plays, unfortunately a lot of those have come with the bases loaded. They're just resilient. If they don't score one inning, they just try to score the next and they keep going."
"They battled. It was kind of a "ho-hum" game and it felt like that the whole time. To get that momentum in the ninth, to have the tying run in the on-deck circle was good."
"I've never really seen (Cody Stubbs) play a whole lot. I saw him in Spring Training a little bit, and the he got hurt. He's taking pitches, and when he gets a pitch he's driving it so that's good to see…and he's left-handed. We haven't had one of those all year. It's good to see him swinging the bat."