Blog Curse Continues

The Curse of the Sea Blog went into a slump for a little while, but now it looks like it's back on track. The Sea Dogs lost again this afternoon, 5-2 to the Akron Aeros. The Sea Dogs looked completely uninspired today in scraping together only three hits off Dan Denham and making a couple of errors in the field. After winning the series opener, the Dogs lost three in a row to Akron.

In a surprise move, top prospect Anibal Sanchez started for the Sea Dogs on the mound. While he showed flashes of why he is so good, he also struggled and failed to get through the fourth inning. Things started poorly, as Sanchez gave up a home run to leadoff batter Franklin Gutierrez and hard singles to the next two batters. A strikeout and double play got Sanchez out of the jam, and he cruised through the next two innings while recording four strikeouts. A home run by Brad Snyder, a couple walks, a balk and a misplayed ground ball accounted for two more runs before Sanchez was removed. Sanchez featured a fastball that reached 95 mph, a curve ball that he could throw for strikes, and a knee-buckling change. His biggest problem on the day was control, and he managed to throw first-pitch strikes to only six of the 17 batters that he faced. I've seen similar performances from Jon Papelbon and Jon Lester this season, so I'm not concerned with this shaky performance. I believe that he can pitch at this level.

Scorer's Notes:

• Hanley Ramirez was playing second base for the second game in a row. The story is that the Red Sox want to get him experience at other positions. This can only be a bad sign for Mark Bellhorn. Hanley didn't get much activity at second, but he did a nice job in turning a double play, applied the tag on a stolen base, and made a nice diving stop to his right to snag Eider Torres' grounder for the final out in the 9th.
• For some reason unknowable to me, Sanchez wore long sleeves in the 90-degree sunshine.
• I think that we had everything but a triple today in the ways a player can reach base - single, double, home run, error, walk, hit-by-pitch, and catcher's interference. I might be forgetting something. Oh, yeah, wild pitch on a strikeout - we didn't have one of those. By the way, when you're seeing a lot of these things (errors, balks, catcher's interference), you're not seeing good baseball.
• One of the between-innings promos is "Lob A Lobster", where two guys with lacrosse sticks lob rubber lobsters to the two contestents, who are trying to catch them in an old-fashioned lobster trap. This game is a bad idea for couples. Today, two buddies from out of state (Connecticut and NYC) were our contestents. After receiving some generous scoring and winning the prize (dinner at Newick's Restaurant in South Portland), one of the guys celebrated by taunting the Sea Dogs dugout, pointing to the Yankee logo on his shirt. Yankee fans are so bush league.
• Both of the guys who hit home runs were featured in my prospect preview the other day. The rest of the day wasn't all that similar, as Gutierrez collected 4 strikeouts forllowing his home run, while Snyder collected a single and a double.
• Each team's top home run hitter was batting 7th. It's understandable for the Sea Dogs, as Jared Sandberg isn't as good as the guys ahead of him. But I can't figure out why Jon Van Every continues to bat behind the light hitting Shaun Larkin (who was at least playing a more sensible position today - third base).
• The relief rotation was the same for the Sea Dogs as on Friday, so I got another look at Jason Pearson. He's got a mediocre fastball (~86 mph), but throws a slow curve for strikes, which accounts for most of his success on the mound.