Dog Days of Summer

The Sea Dogs won their fifth game in a row last night, 4-2 over the New Britain Rock Cats. All of the wins have come against the Cats: the first game of the streak was at New Britain, with a three-game sweep of the New Hampshire Fisher Cats in the middle. The Sea Dogs are now ahead of Trenton by four games for first in the EL North.

It was a return to form of sorts for Jon Lester, who pitched a complete game to win his first game since the All Star break. Lester wasn't as dominant as he can be, allowing 9 hits, walking three and hitting two batters (including leadoff batter Denard Span on the very first pitch), but he got timely strikeouts (six in all) and popups, and three double plays to boot. Lester now leads the EL with a 2.47 ERA (edging ahead of former teammate Jon Papelbon, who still has enough innings to qualify and who posted a 2.48 ERA in Portland). Lester is also second in the EL with 131 K's, however first place Joel Zumaya is now in AAA. Barring a promotion of his own, Lester will be in first place by mid-August.

Scorer's Notes:

• The DP's helped, but Lester was very efficient with his pitches, needing just 104 to finish the game. Lester has a funny way of mowing down hitters, then suddenly being unable to hit the plate, resulting in a four-pitch walk. There was some of this last night, resulting in a high total of 14 base runners for the Rock Cats.
• Aside from the two home runs he allowed, New Britain's Glen Perkins pitched well, allowing just four hits and one walk in six innings pitched. His repertoire is quite similar to Lester's.
• Despite playing every day and batting in the middle of the lineup, Jeremy West entered August with less than 30 RBI. He edged ever closer last night, hitting a solo home run and a sacrifice fly to finish the evening with 29 RBI. He's also dangerously close to getting his slugging percentage back over .400, which would be nice to have from your first baseman. David Murphy had the other Sea Dog homer, pounding a hanging curve ball over the right field fence.
• Jared "the Wicket" Sandberg's fielding has improved as his batting average has shrunk. (That's always the tradeoff, right? You give up offense for defense?) Sandberg started two around-the-horn DP's last night.