Dogs beat Cats

The Sea Dogs outslugged New Britain 10-6 last night. The two teams combined for 28 hits, 16 of which went for extra bases. It seemed like every ball struck went down the line, in a gap, or over an outfielder's head. Portland staked Josh Stevens to an early five run lead behind two two-run homers by Bret Ronenberg, but what looked to be a strong outing (retiring the side on five pitches in the first, allowing a runner on an error in the second) turned into batting practice by the third time through the order. The Rock Cats had four doubles from the first five batters in the 5th to tie it at five, but the New Britain bullpen (following a strong 3 1/3 of long relief from hard throwing Beau Kemp) was not up to the task. Victor Moreno took the loss in giving up two runs in the 6th, raising his ERA to 2.08 on the season, and the Dogs scored three more in the 8th off Bobby Korecky. Ryan Cameron frustrated the home crowd by failing to throw strikes with a five-run lead in the 9th, giving up a run on two walks and two singles before Joe Nelson recorded the final two outs with the bases loaded for his fifth save. Josh Stevens was credited with the win as the Dogs moved to within 1/2 game of New Britain for fifth place in the EL Northern division.

Game Notes:
Batting stars a-plenty: New Britain was led by LF Tommy Watkins (3-5, 2 2B, 2 R) and 1B Garrett Jones (4-5, 3 2B, 1 RBI), while slugging RF Jason Kubel had two walks and a two-run triple in lowering his BA to .391 and increasing his team-leading RBI total to 22. Kubel was rated as the Twins 8th-best prospect this spring. BJ Garbe and Jason Mauer also had two hits each for the Rock Cats.

Portland's attack was led by Ronenberg (2-3, 2 BB, 2HR, 3 R, 4 RBI), Sean McGowan (not to be confused with Shane MacGowan) (4-4, 2B, 3 RBI including the go-ahead single in the 6th) and Jesus Medrano (3-5, 2B, 3B, SB, 3 R). Medrano was also a defensive star, with 8 putouts (3 popups, 4 forces at second (one on a DP), and a putout at first on the backend of a botched bunt-turned-DP as Stevens made a nice diving catch on the bunt and doubled Mauer off first). However, Medrano fumbled the one ground ball hit his way for an error in the second. The Sea Dogs made three errors in all.

Cameron pitched well in Portland last season (3.14 ERA in 51 IP), but did not impress at all last night, continuing his season-long struggles with control (14 BB, 4 HB, 6 WP in 24 IP) and making the natives restless in the ninth, to say the least.

It was a pleasant evening at the ballpark, with the gametime temperature in the low 70's and very little breeze. Thanks to Betty for the tickets and the rest of the Matero clan as well for the company. Total Recap score books were out in force, including Total Recap Jr. for the youngsters.

One complaint about the public address system, whereby the final three pitching changes for the Rock Cats were not announced to the crowd. For those of us who brought our own score books (and didn't have the official programs), it was very frustrating not knowing who was in the game. Also, the Sea Dogs used to make a big deal with the "guess the attendance" game, but as far as I can tell, the attendance was not announced at all last night. These are minor issues, but did detract a little for those of us trying to fill out complete score sheets.

Here's the box score.