Potomac wins in Arnesen's debut

In line with the trend of 2008, the newest member of the Potomac Nationals pitching staff made himself right at home in the Carolina League.
Erik Arnesen, just promoted to the High-A club from Hagerstown Monday morning, allowed just one earned run on five hits in six and two-thirds innings of a 9-3 win over Wilmington at Pfitzner Stadium in the evening.
Potomac extended its Carolina League Northern Division lead to three games, pounding out 16 hits. Since taking over first place April 10, the P-Nats have spent just two days without at least a share of the division lead.
As he departed with a six-run lead and two out in the seventh, Arnesen waved his glove to cheer-ing fans behind the home dugout, after impressing the entire crowd of 3,799 in attendance with his league debut.
“He did an outstanding job throwing the ball over the plate, keeping it down and he got outs,” Po-tomac pitching coach Randy Tomlin said after Arnesen struck out five and walked just one. “He was aggressive throwing his fastball down in the zone and he threw his breaking ball for strikes. That’s what you’ve got to do against a good team like Wilmington.”
Arnesen was 6-4 with a 3.97 ERA with the Suns and began the year as a relief pitcher before mak-ing the transition to the starting rotation June 10. The 24-year-old right-hander promptly posted a 2.90 ERA in his new role and, despite a 1-2 record in seven starts, impressed the Nationals brass enough to earn the promotion to Potomac after swingman Joe Norrito was placed on the disabled list with soreness in his right (pitching) arm. Norrito is 7-2 with a 4.20 ERA in 16 games (six starts).
The 6-foot-3, 260-pound Arnesen (1-0) is just the latest example of pitching prowess for Potomac. Arnesen, a Grove City College (New Jersey) product, became the 14th different pitcher to start a game for the P-Nats when he made his Carolina League debut last night.
Another recent addition, Luis Atilano, was named Carolina League Pitcher of the Week for games played July 21-27, allowing just one hit to both Kinston and Frederick in 10 scoreless innings. The Puerto Rico-native has been limited to just five innings or 75 pitches in each start as he recov-ers from off-season Tommy John surgery which he underwent in 2006.
Atilano, now 4-0 with a 2.39 ERA over two stints with Potomac this year, struck out six over the two games and is the fifth P-Nat to earn weekly honors this year, joining Jordan Zimmermann, Edgardo Baez, Leonard Davis and Marvin Lowrance. All four of those previous winners have since been promoted to Double-A Harrisonburg or Triple-A Columbus. Atilano himself spent time with the Suns in June, appearing in two games, one as a starter and one in relief.
Potomac entered last night’s game with a 3.50 ERA as a staff in the month of July, the lowest mark by a Carolina League club over that period.
“We’ve got really good team chemistry and one thing our manager (Randy Knorr) stresses is de-veloping all his players,” said Boomer Whiting after a 2-for-3 night.
Whiting even played with Arnesen at Hagerstown before Whiting’s promotion July 10.
“We’ve got guys who know what each other can do,” Whiting said, “and we’ve got new guys who can step in and fill the voids.”
Wilmington starter Ed Cegarra was able to wriggle out of a bases loaded jam in the first inning with a two-out strikeout, but was not so fortunate in the second when the P-Nats sent 10 hitters to the plate.
To start the inning Potomac loaded the bases once again with three straight hits, this time with no outs, when leadoff hitter Michael Martinez opened the scoring floodgates with a three-run dou-ble. Martinez scored from third on a one-out single from Francisco Plasencia.
Trevor Lawhorn then drove Plasencia in on a sacrifice fly after a single from Andrew Lafave sent the center fielder to third, leaving the Nationals up 5-0.
Dee Brown added an RBI-double in the fifth to go up 6-3 when Lawhorn made a heads-up hook slide around Wilmington catcher Matt Morizio’s tag at the plate. Brown later scored when Boomer Whiting beat out his 12th infield hit of the season.
“(Speed) is just a weapon that is really hard to defend and speed isn’t something you can teach,” Whiting said. “It puts a lot of pressure on the defense and that’s something we like to do here.”
Potomac stretched the lead back to five on Dan Lyons’ bloop single to right, plating Martinez for the team’s eighth run of the night.
Lawhorn hit his sixth home run of the year in the sixth, a one-out solo shot.
Potomac reliever Edulin Abreu pitched two and one-third shut-out innings to finish the game, al-lowing just two hits with two out in the ninth.