Woodbridge, VA - An eight-run fifth inning for the Potomac Nationals led to an 8-7 loss by the Wilmington Rocks on Thursday at Northwest Federal Field. The eight runs are the most allowed in a single inning by the Blue Rocks all season. Oliver Nunez hit his first-career home run
Woodbridge, VA - An eight-run fifth inning for the Potomac Nationals led to an 8-7 loss by the Wilmington Rocks on Thursday at Northwest Federal Field. The eight runs are the most allowed in a single inning by the Blue Rocks all season. Oliver Nunez hit his first-career home run as a Blue Rock and led the offense with three hits. Wilmington finished its seven-game road trip to Salem and Potomac just 1-6.
The P-Nats combined power with good fortune and sloppy Wilmington defense to post their crooked number and erase an early four-run deficit. Two balls lost in the lights by Blue Crew fielders led to a pair of extra-base hits for Potomac, while an error by left fielder D.J. Burt also hampered Wilmington's cause.
In spite of the miscues all of the runs were earned against Gerson Garabito . The righty yielded six hits and walked a pair during the decisive frame. Entering the inning Garabito had allowed just one hit.
Tres Barrera got things started by working a walk. Garabito bounced back with a strikeout before allowing consecutive fly balls. One was lost in the lights by Khalil Lee as it headed to the left-center gap. The other drifted out of the vision of both Nunez and Kort Peterson , leading to a run-scoring bloop-double in right-center. Blake Perkins then walked to load the bases which set up a sacrifice fly off the bat of Carter Kieboom.
Things unraveled from there on Garabito. He allowed a single to left by Alec Keller that slipped under the glove of Burt and resulted in two runs scoring to tie the game. Jake Noll gave Potomac the lead on a single to left and Rhett Wiseman added to it with a double to right. Barrera put the punctuation mark on the elongated inning with a two-run blast that also ended Garabito's evening.
The Rocks bounced back immediately scoring three times in the very next inning to pull back to within a single score. Chris DeVito worked a one-out walk and Nunez singled. That set the stage for Angelo Castellano to rope a two-run triple off the wall in dead center. Castellano scored on Burt's ensuing grounder to second. However, Potomac added two insurances runs in the bottom of the eighth on a two-out, two-run single by Keller to give the game its final score, 10-7.
It was Nunez who got Wilmington going with a solo homer in the third. Wilmington would add another run to its ledger later in the inning thanks to an RBI double by Gabriel Cancel . DeVito increased the advantage in the fourth with a sacrifice fly, while Lee's RBI-grounder to second made it 4-0.
Wilmington returns to Frawley Stadium to begin a seven-game homestand during the Memorial Day weekend. The Rocks will welcome in the Salem Red Sox for a four-game series Friday with first pitched scheduled for 7:05 p.m. Righty Arnaldo Hernandez (4-2, 3.76 ERA) makes the start for Wilmington while fellow right-hander Darwinzon Hernandez (3-1, 4.45 ERA) starts for Salem. Fans can listen to the game as Matt Janus and Cory Nidoh have the call on 89.7 WGLS-FM.
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