Homers help Dash dump Nationals 5-4

The Winston-Salem Dash scrapped its way to 5-4 victory over the Potomac Nationals in a most unlikely fashion last night at Wake Forest Baseball Park.

With promotions to higher leagues having turned the meat of his order into tofu, Manager Joe McEwing penciled in a lineup with nine players who had hit a total of 32 Carolina League homers this season. Five had yet to hit a homer, and third baseman Brent Morel and first baseman Seth Loman had combined for 25.

But it was the long-time teammates, second baseman Dale Mollenhauer and Greg Paiml who slammed solo homers that made the difference and kept the Dash in first place in the second-half race of the CL's Southern Divison.

Mollenhauer hit his fifth of the season off the scoreboard in right center for a 3-1 lead in the sixth and Paiml hit his fourth in the eighth to give the Dash a 5-3 cushion it would need when Greg Veloz hit a solo homer off closer Santo Luis in the bottom of the inning.

Paiml's homer was much less prodigious than that of Mollenhauer, barely clearing the glove of right-fielder Jesus Valdez before bounding high off the top of the fence and over.

The Dash is 28-13 this season in one-run games.

"I hit a fastball away," Paiml said of the pitch from reliever Dan Leatherman. "I hit the top of the fence. I was a little concerned when I saw him jumping for it."

Paiml said it's the first time he can remember he and Mollenhauer hitting professional homers in the same game, even though they've played together for 2½ years at Great Falls of the Pioneer League, Kannapolis of the South Atlantic League and Winston-Salem.

"It's nice to finally hit for a little power, especially the way we've been hitting," Paiml said of the Dash's recent power outage at the plate. "We haven't been getting as many hits as we wanted to.

"It's nice to get a win right before the road trip."

The Dash will play two games tonight in Lynchburg to open a four-game series over three days. It will then play four at Salem before returning home to play Lynchburg next Friday.

The Dash, which had lost three of four while scoring a total of seven runs, got a boost from left-hander Justin Edwards, who limited the Nationals to three runs -- two earned -- over seven innings to improve to 5-2.

He gave up six hits, with just two of them leaving the infield.

"Edwards was outstanding," McEwing said. "He was real good.

"He's a competitor. He competes and he kept us in the game."

Edwards tired in the seventh, when he gave up two runs on three hits and a walk. With runners breaking off second and third on the fourth ball to Michael Martinez, catcher John Curtis came up firing and overthrew third base, allowing Veloz to score the tying run.

But Potomac returned the favor a half-inning later, when starter Brad Peacock threw the ball into center trying to pick Justin Greene off second.

Greene took third and scored the go-ahead run on Serio Morales' bloop single into right.

Paiml then hit his homer in the eighth for a two-run cushion and Luis survived Veloz' homer in the ninth by fanning Martinez for the game's final out.

"We grinded it out," McEwing said. "Runs have been few and far between lately, but they grinded it out tonight."

■ Dan Collins can be reached at 727-7323 or at dcollins@wsjournal.com.

POT. ab r h bi W-S ab r h bi

Mrtnz 2b 4 0 1 1 Mllnhr 2b 4 1 1 1

Espinosa ss 2 0 1 0 Paiml ss 4 1 2 1

Valdez rf 4 0 0 0 Kuhn lf 4 1 1 0

Burgess dh 4 0 1 0 Morel 3b 4 1 2 0

Ivany c 4 0 0 0 Loman 1b 4 0 1 0

Pahuta 1b 3 1 1 0 Greene cf 3 1 1 2

Nelson lf 4 0 1 0 Curtis c 2 0 0 0

Veloz 3b 4 3 2 1 Morales rf 3 0 1 1

Whiting cf 2 0 1 1 Prshna dh 3 0 0 0

Totals 31 4 8 3 Totals 31 5 9 5

Potomac 001 000 201 -- 4

Winston-Salem 000 201 11x -- 5

E--Peacock, Paiml, Curtis. DP--Winston-Salem 1. LOB--Potomac 6, Winston-Salem 4. 2B--Martinez, Paiml, Morel, Loman. HR--Veloz, Mollenhauer, Paiml. CS--Greene.

Potomac IP H R ER BB SO

Peacock, L (2-2) 7 4 4 4 0 4

Leatherman 1 2 1 1 0 0

Winston-Salem IP H R ER BB SO

Edwards, W (5-2) 7 6 3 2 2 3

Corley 1 1 0 0 1 0

Luis, S, 12 1 1 1 1 1 2

HBP--by Peacock (Greene). T--2:21. A--571.