Sea Dogs outslug Altoona

Jose Vaquedano is looking for a nickname. His up-and-down performance is reminiscent of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Unfortunately for Jose, the Sea Dogs already have a Jekyll-and-Hyde pitcher in the name of Kason Gabbard. Regardless, Vaquedano made a push to wrestle the title away from the suddenly-pretty-consistant Mr. Gabbard by following last Thursday's pretty good outing with a pretty bad one Tuesday night. Vaquedano gave up seven hits and six walks and hit a batter in just 2.1 innings against the Curve, but he somehow managed to allow just six runs and avoid the loss. That's because the suddenly-potent Sea Dogs lineup smashed 13 hits of their own, including three home runs (Altoona batters also had three, including a grand salami by Ray Sadler).

Lucky for the Sea Dogs, Altoona starter Matt Peterson was no better. The Dogs knocked him out in the fourth after he allowed seven runs. Despite his poor performance, Peterson didn't collect the loss either. That honor went to Jon Albaladejo, who helped cap Portland's seven-run fourth by surrendering a three-run blast to Little Papi that gave Portland a 10-8 lead. From there the Dogs cruised to a 13-8 victory.

Spann, Durbin and Jiminez celebrate Li'l Papi's three-run blast

Notes:

• The weather was nice, which is fortunate for me, because it doesn't look like they'll be playing any baseball, at least not any dry baseball, for a while now.
• Altoona features three former Sea Dogs, OF/DH Brett Roneberg (shown batting below) and pitchers Blaine Neal and James Johnson. Despite being a former Red Sock, Neal was here when the Sea Dogs were affiliated with the Marlins. And it's clear to see why Mr. Neal is back down to AA after time in the bigs - he's really wild. He nailed Tyler Minges in the head with a fastball (thank goodness for helmets) in the 6th. Minges left the game, but is reportedly OK.

• Curve prospect Craig Stansberry failed to impress, going 0-5 with three K's and committing an error that led to two unearned runs. Least impressive was his following three Vaquedano walks and a HBP that led to a first-inning run, by swinging at three straight offerings for the inning-ending K.
• This game illustrates how poor an indicator of performance that Win/loss records are. Devern Hansack pitched three terrific shutout innings in relief, but the win went to Jonathan Searles, who allowed two runs in 1.2 innings, but who was the pitcher of record when Jiminez went deep. Likewise, Peterson probably deserved the L for Altoona.
• The Curve are named after the Horseshoe Curve, a railroad feature near Altoona that is also an historic landmark.
• The entertainment, if you want to call it that, is a person named Christopher who has four life-sized puppets attached to him. They are all dressed up like the Village People and dance around to disco music. It is an abomination, but apparently he gets paid to do this. Give me Slugger any day of the week!

Christopher and friends.