P-Nats' Braymer spins seven hitless frames

Ben Braymer wasn't quite perfect, but it might not have mattered if he were.
The Washington left-hander retired the first 18 batters he faced and issued only one walk over seven frames Tuesday, but Class A Advanced Potomac ended up falling to Myrtle Beach, 1-0, in nine innings. The 24-year-old starter struck out nine, one shy of his season high.

Gameday box score
Braymer, who threw 65 of his 97 pitches for strikes, said some minor tweaks to his warmup routine paid big dividends on the mound against the Pelicans. 
"[Potomac pitching coach] Sam Narron and I made and adjustment with my pregame routine, just giving me a little more time," the southpaw said. "We adjusted the throwing aspect of it a little bit and put a little more emphasis at reaching 100 percent at the end of the throwing program. I think heading into the start that helps with the finish on all my pitches and helps me get to 100 percent, so to say, by the first pitch of that game." 
The Auburn University product has had plenty of success in August, carrying a 1.06 ERA and 0.65 WHIP with 24 strikeouts through 17 innings. For the year, Braymer owns a 2.41 ERA, which would rank third in the Carolina League if he had enough innings to qualify.
As he works through the final few weeks of the regular season, Braymer is trying to maintain his new routine without deviating too much from what's made him successful for a large portion of the year. 
"There hasn't been anything major that we've changed," he said. "It's kind of been trusting the process. It's August, it's kind of getting toward the end of the season. Sometimes it can be difficult to stick with the process, but I think collectively we've done a good job of doing that and we're just going to have to keep it up as we finish it out."
Braymer fanned the first two batters he faced -- D.J. Wilson, the Cubs No. 16 prospect, and fifth-ranked Aramis Ademan -- and racked up five strikeouts through three frames. He needed only 37 pitches to get through the Pelicans lineup the first time. Three innings later, he struck out Wladimir Galindo and Zach Davis to get through the order unscathed a second time.

The 2016 18th-rounder walked Wilson to lead off the seventh, then retired the next three batters to end his outing. Right-hander Jacob Condra-Bogan kept the second column of the scoreboard clean with a hitless eighth, but the P-Nats couldn't capitalize in bottom of the frame.
As he rolled through the start, Braymer said he didn't think much -- if at all -- about the shot at perfection. Working with the game plan set forth beforehand and having a solid rapport with backstop -- and No. 17 Nationals prospect -- Tres Barrera proved to be difference makers in the outing. If anything, the Louisiana native said he'd like to build off and improve from this latest outing.
"With each outing I try to take away one point of emphasis that I want to work on the following week," Braymer said. 'I obviously walked D.J. Wilson, a left-handed batter. I was disappointed that I gave up a walk on a left-on-left matchup. But through the course of the outing I didn't think about [the perfect game] that much. I stayed locked in with [Barrera] and [Narron] and just kept going out there and challenging [the Pelicans]."
Condra-Bogan came back out for the ninth and got Zach Davis and Wilson to ground out, but he fell behind Ademan, 3-1, before the shortstop singled to left field for Myrtle Beach's first hit, which scored Yeiler Peguero with the game's lone run.
Alex Lange, Cubs No. 3 prospect, was nearly as good for the Pelicans. Lange allowed two hits and a walk while striking out five over six innings.
In Game 2, Potomac flipped the script with a 1-0 win as Aldrem Corredor delivered a go-ahead single in the sixth inning.