Potomac wins 2-1 in 15 innings

It was a simple, innocuous play, Stephen King’s ground out in the bottom of the 15th inning. It will go down as nothing more than a “3, unassisted” in the scorebook, but it was the biggest play of the game if you ask new arrival Daniel Leatherman.

The rest of the team agreed, greeting the third base prospect before he returned to the dugout with high-fives and helmet slaps.

“I know he had tweaked his shoulder a little on the check-swing before that,“ Leatherman said, “and I was hoping he’d have enough left to get that ground ball to first.“

That seemingly small play resulted in one of the smallest players on the field in Boomer Whiting advancing from second to third with just one out. It also put Whiting, led the inning off with a single, in position to score the winning run on a wild pitch and end the game 2-1 in Potomac’s favor, giving the Nationals a 1-0 lead over the Wilmington Blue Rocks in the opening round of the Caro-lina League playoffs Wednesday night.

“I’m just a little bit tired,“ Whiting said laughing, just moments after getting mobbed at the plate by his teammates. “That’s a huge at-bat right there with a full count and he’s battling. That’s his job, to get us over.

“After a long game like that you’re just looking for some kind of momentum,“ Whiting added. “Luckily I got a base hit on the first pitch, stole second, King did his job moving me over. From there we were just looking for something to happen. They were trying to bury a breaking ball (on hitter Dan Lyons) so I was ready for that ball in the dirt.“

After Luis Atilano allowed just two hits in six scoreless innings and left leading 1-0, the Blue Rocks tied the game in the eighth with a Jeff Howell lead-off home run. The teams then matched zeros over the next six frames including four shutout innings from Leatherman (1-0), fresh from Low-A Hagerstown.

“That was probably my longest outing of the year. First day up here you get kind of nervous,“ said Leatherman, who is still trying to learn names on the squad. “Coming up here for the playoffs I’m just trying to help the team.“

Just like he had all year with Potomac, Atilano looked unbeatable against Wilmington. Atilano’s sinker sunk the wild card team early, keeping the Blue Rocks off balance while he was on the mound, resulting in a two-hit effort in front of 851 in attendance at Pfitzner Stadium.

The 23-year-old right-hander was 5-2 with a 2.32 ERA this year and needed only 67 pitches last night, making efficient use of his allotment of 85 following Tommy John surgery in 2006 (he is also permitted no more than six innings of work per start in the playoffs).

Consistently working the corners of the plate, Atilano didn’t allow a single runner to reach third.

Aside from the run allowed by reliever Kyle Gunderson, the entire Potomac pitching staff that appeared in the game pitched strong.

“We did an awesome job tonight,“ Leatherman said. Atilano threw a great game. (Josh) Wilkie came in and did a great job; Gunderson did a great job; Severino did, too. It just feels great, an overall team win.“

The P-Nats offense struggled much of the night as well, a change for Potomac against Wilmington this year after winning 13 of 20 match ups between the teams. The difference has been seen in the final regular season series at Wilmington when the Nationals scored 13 runs while allowing 22 in a split of the four-game set.

But it was a couple of the second-half additions who gave Potomac its first run of the playoffs. Dan Lyons, added to the club at the end of June,
hit a two-out double in the fifth to score King, who was promoted from Hagerstown Aug. 11.

The playoff appearance is the first for a full-season Washington-club since Montreal moved to the nation’s capital in 2005 and the first for the Potomac franchise since 2004 as the Cannons. This year’s team is also the first in the franchise’s 31-year history to win both the regular season first- and second-half titles.