On a clear perfect baseball weather Sunday  day in Wilmington, Delaware, the Wilmington Blue Rocks and Potomac Nationals had the runs coming in bunches all day. Unfortunately, the Rocks came up on the short side and ended up losing to the Nationals 8-7.

The Rocks were trailing in this game early and tried to keep pace with a Nationals team that was scoring in bunches every time they were at bat.

The game started to get interesting when the Rocks tied the game at 6-6 in the bottom of the 5th innings thanks to Left Fielder Anderson Miller whose triple scored Shortstop Nicky Lopez and Second baseman D.J. Burt.

Wilmington’s pitching struggled as their starter Emilio Ogando only lasted 4 innings and gave up 9 hits, 6 runs, 6 ER, 1 BB,5 Ks and 1 HR.

Then Ogando’s replacement Jared Ruxer did not do any better and gave up a two run home run by Nationals Ian Sagdal in the top of 6th inning to make Nats lead 8-6.

Ruxer’s final stats were 3 innings pitched, 5 hits, 2 runs, 2 ERs, 1 BB, 5 Ks and 1 HR.

Franco Terrero came in for Ruxer for the last two innings of the game and pitched pretty well going 2 innings, 1 hit and 3Ks.

Rocks did score in the 9th, thanks to Brandon Downes home run to tighten the game to 8-7 but was not able to score after that.

Along with Downes and Miller the other Blue Rocks who had RBIs in this game were Elier Hernandez ( 2) and Wader Franco ( 2).

The team continues to struggle with runners in scoring position going 2-15 in this game and leaving 9 men on base.

Blue Rocks look to get back on the winning side at home again when they face the  Carolina Mudcats on Monday at 6:35pm ET