Sea Dogs end slide

The Sea Dogs snapped one streak and continued another on Friday night in beating New Hampshire 4-3. Matt Van Der Bosch's ("VDB") bases loaded suicide squeeze bunt plated David Murphy with the winning run, snapping Portland's four game losing streak and extended their winning streak vs. the Fisher Cats to 12 games on the season. Portland now leads the season series vs. their rivals 16-4, and can eliminate the Cats (and clinch a playoff spot) by winning the final two games of the series.

The Sea Dogs spotted New Hampshire leads of 2-0 and 3-1 but chipped away at starting pitcher Josh Banks to tie the score in the bottom of the 6th inning. Murphy's walk and Jim Buckley's HBP off lefty Jesse Carlson set the stage for VDB's heroics following a sacrifice and an intentional walk. Chris Smith alternated between being unhittable and very hittable in allowing seven hits (most very solidly struck) and striking out seven over 5.2 innings pitched. Smith's knuckle curve proved difficult to solve, as he recorded five of his seven K's on low, slow pitches in the dirt.

Scorer's notes:

• Craig Hansen remains unscored upon after another 1.1 inning outing last night, however he wasn't as impressive as we've seen him. Three of the five batters he faced got hits, however he was aided by a nice throw by VDB that cut down Chip Cannon attempting to score in the 6th, and a nifty scoop by the other newcomer, Chad Spann, who started a 5-4-3 DP to end the 7th. Hansen's now allowed nine hits and one walk vs. 10 K's in 9.2 innings in Portland. I believe that he's still on track for a callup to Boston prior to September 1st.
• Spann had a terrific night in the field. In addition to the aforementioned double play, he made a barehanded play on a ball bunted by Brad Hassey starting the 7th, and a leaping stab of a line drive off the bat of Rob Cosby in the 8th. He was so good that the official scorekeeper decided to change an error initially charged to him on a hard hit grounder in the 6th, to a base hit. Spann also laid down two perfect sacrifice bunts that helped lead to Portland runs, including one in the 9th inning rally.
• Smith did something that I've never seen before. Pitching to Cosby leading off the 4th, Smith went into his windup and whipped his arm around - without the ball in his hand. This is a non-event in the score book, but it flustered Cosby for a moment. He recovered to hit a solid line drive to Hanley Ramirez on the next pitch.
• Ramirez had another good night at the plate, with two hits and a walk. His aggressive baserunning giveth and taketh away, however, as he took an extra base on a brief bobble by Miguel Negron in the 4th. He followed that up by running into an out in trying to advance to third on Jeremy West's foul pop fly, ending the inning.
• The radar gun at Hadlock appears to have been re-calibrated. Either that or Portland's pitchers are throwing a lot harder than they did earlier in the season. Chris Smith topped out at 90 mph, after never throwing harder than 85 the last time that I saw him. (There may have been an injury involved that time, though.) Slow-tossing Randy Beam hit 89 with his 86-mph fastball. I've seen Jon Lester and Charlie Zink hit speeds that I've never seen from them before this week, too. It seems fishy to me.
• I got a moment on the Ford Board last night. Slugger was doing his Chicken dance routine in section 108, which he then follows up by selecting a fan for the Home Run inning. Well, he was walking over the seats and the clumsy guy tripped and fell right into the lap of Nick, who was scoring the game with me. He then picked me to be the lucky fan with a chance to win $100 if any Sea Dog batter hit a home run in the bottom of the sixth. Alas, despite the strongest prompting by Nick and myself, nobody came close. It was fun to be part of the festivities, however.