NATS LOSE 2-1 ON WILD PITCH

(WINSTON-SALEM, NC) A wild pitch capped off a bizarre tenth inning and sent the Winston-Salem Dash to a 2-1 win over the Potomac Nationals on Wednesday night at BB&T Ballpark. The P-Nats have now lost 11 straight games and suffered a walkoff loss for the second consecutive night in Winston. Andy Wilkins sprinted home from third to score the winning run; his heated at-bat finished with a walk to open the tenth. Josh Smoker, who had pitched a perfect ninth inning to send the game to extra innings, began his delivery home to open the bottom of the tenth. Wilkins called for time extremely late and had it granted by home plate umpire Asa Gaddy. Smoker's next pitch was high and inside to Wilkins, and the two barked and glared at one another. Wilkins worked the count to 3 and 1, and Smoker fired a fastball that appeared to be over the heart of the plate. It was called ball four, and the winning run was aboard. Nick Ciolli then hit a beautiful bunt to the right side of the infield. It scooted under Steven Souza's glove and headed for right field. Shortstop Jose Lozada made a fantastic hustling play to retrieve the baseball and throw to third; his throw beat Wilkins to the bag but Wilkins was called safe an the Dash had two in scoring position with no outs. The first pitch to Jason Bour went to the backstop and allowed Wilkins to scamper home for the 2-1 Dash win. For the second straight night, the P-Nats took the first lead. In the fourth inning, Destin Hood drew a leadoff walk and moved to second on Justin Bloxom's single to center. Hood made it to third on a Souza groundout and scored on a J.P. Ramirez sacrifice fly. Winston tied it in the sixth with a pair of leadoff doubles off Potomac starter Trevor Holder. Holder then worked out of the jam to keep the game tied, where it would remain until the tenth. Dash starter Terry Doyle pitched nine impressive innings, allowing just one unearned run on six hits (Hood's run was unearned because his foul popup was misplayed by Bour before Hood walked in the fourth). Marcos Frias bounced back from his loss on Tuesday and hurled two scoreless innings for Potomac. The Nationals look to snap their slide and salvage the series finale Thursday night at 7:00 P.M. Paul Demny takes the mound against righty Andre Rienzo.