Belated Post - Dogs drop Game 2

My apologies to my loyal readers for not making a timely post after game two of the Portland/Akron EL Championship series. I've been very busy the last couple of days. As most Sea Dogs fans know, Portland lost game two to the Southern Division champions by a 4-3 tally. Game three is underway in Akron as I write this.

Wednesday's game was a frustrating experience for the Sea Dogs fan. Starting pitcher Charlie Zink pitched pretty well (zero walks, five K's in five innings), but did hang a couple of knucklers that were hit hard. Akron was able to string a few of these hits together to collect two runs in the first and another in the second. The Sea Dogs were all over Akron starter Rafael Perez, but were only able to scrap individual runs in each of the first three innings to tie the score. It stood that way until Nate Panther hit a shot over the bullpen in right for the winning run in the fifth inning.

Perez ended up with a pretty decent line score, allowing just two earned runs with seven strikeouts in six innings pitched, but his command was off. He gave up nine hits, walked three, hit a batter and threw a wild pitch in that time. Portland's first run scored on a passed ball, as catcher Javier Herrera was having a difficult time with Perez' slider. In all, the Sea Dogs left eight men on base in the first five innings, six in scoring position. Perez was able to get the timely outs when needed, including three strikeouts of David Murphy with runners in scoring position in the first four innings. Alberto Concepcion led off the sixth with a walk, but he was retired on Chris Durbin's double play grounder. He was the last Sea Dog base runner of the evening, with Chris Cooper and Edward Mujica combining for three perfect innings of relief, Mujica earning the save in the process.

Scorer's notes:

• Rough night for Murphy. The three K's came in the exact same fashion, Murphy waving at a slider away. By his third time up, everybody in the stadium knew what was going to happen, and none of us could do a thing about it. Murphy finally managed to pop out to shorstop off Cooper in the seventh.
• Portland's pen matched Akron's nearly pitch-for-pitch, with Conor Brooks, Edgar Martinez, Randy Beam and Craig Hansen each spinning a scoreless frame. Hansen was shakiest, walking a batter and allowing a wall-ball double, but his velocity was there and he was throwing his hard slider. Martinez was the most effective, blowing 95-mph fastballs by everybody. He struck out two and allowed a weak popup to short. Martinez is starting to show a great deal of promise.
• Hanley Ramirez had two more hard singles to right field. When he arrived in Portland last season he was hitting everything the opposite way with authority. This year he seemed to be trying to pull the ball a lot, and his batting average was (perhaps not coincidentally) down 40 points. It looks like he's making his natural swing again, with positive results.
• Theo Epstein was in attendance again, but I didn't see him. I was in front of him this time around - fourth row directly behind home plate. Great seats - it's amazing what you can get when you are buying just one ticket. I was sitting near former Sea Dog coach Ken Joyce, who now manages the Lansing Lugnuts. He was swapping stories with a Press Herald writer, and I was eavesdropping on them. Joyce is a great story, he got a summer job as the bullpen catcher for the Sea Dogs when they came to town in 1994, and parlayed that into a job as a minor league coach and now manager. It's not The Rookie, but it's still pretty cool.
• Another good crowd. As predicted here, attendance was over 5,000. Officially, 5,307, but it was a pretty big crowd through the turnstiles, as the box seats were much more full than on a typical night. Both Tuesday and Wednesday were beautiful nights for baseball. A wonderful way to end the season after the cold, wet spring that we had.

Tonight's game features a rehabbing Wade Miller (to be followed to the mound by Anibal Sanchez) for the Sea Dogs and Brian Slocum for Akron. This matchup would appear to favor the Sea Dogs, if Miller is sharper than last time around. The game is previewed here by the Press Herald. I don't know if writer Kevin Thomas reads the Sea Blog, but he took a page right out of my book in talking about Slocum: "Akron will counter with Brian Slocum, who is 7-5 with a 4.40 ERA. ... For the season, he has 95 strikeouts and 36 walks in 102 innings." What about his WHIP, Kevin? Tell me about his WHIP! (It's 1.31. Not too shabby.)

I don't want to jinx anybody, but right now the game is a pitchers duel.